Praise indeed!

As part of my transfer to my new ISP be*, there is the usual communication with the support desk to confirm one or two things.

In fact the support desk @ be* have been very responsive, and helpful.  For example, I opted for static IP address instead of a dynamic one on my modem/router, the details were passed through in around 30 mins.

The customer web site is easy to use, and the support section is simple and straight forward.

However, I noticed the email notification to updated support tickets were without hyperlinks, either to link back to the ticket or the support site.  However, the notification of final closure of the ticket did include a hyperlink. Obviously a slightly different form is being used for the closure, compared to the active ticket notification form.  An Amendment to the active ticket notification form must only be a simple design/development step.  So I submitted a feedback comment to that effect; with an obvious benefit to all concerned that this would help speed up resolution times to support issues.

I was pleased to receive such positive feedback:

“Dear Charlie Hope, Thank you for interest and feedback, members suggestions helps us to improve, to grow and develop. Your idea is nothing but brilliant, this will definitely make things easier for both parties and it will certainly benefit all of our members in the near future. We are really grateful to you. Your suggestion has been past to our system specialists in order to modify the ticket update notification e-mail. Wishing you a very nice day and a great summer time. Our best regards, The Be* Team.”

[emphasis mine]

I admit this is a very simple improvement to recognise and would hope that at some point they would have done this by themselves.

However, isn’t it great to feel that comments and feedback are appreciated and that appropriate ones can be of benefit to both service provider and user community.

It makes me think how important it is to have a good channel of feedback and dialogue with your customer whoever they may be; and that dialogue and discussion are vital to help both participants value the service they provide or receive. 

Public service providers seem to be ahead of the game in adopting new channels or formats to gain feedback or to inform their user base.

Here’s an example from a Pownce newsletter:

“Talk to us!
We’re here and listening to your bug reports and feature requests at Get Satisfaction, the Pownce community wiki, and in our inbox:
- http://getsatisfaction.com/pownce
- http://pownce.pbwiki.com
- help@pownce.com
Also, don’t forget about our blog at http://blog.pownce.com for more updates!”

I have become a fan of

http://getsatisfaction.com

They have added a great community aspect to feedback and commenting; which not only help individuals support one another in voicing agreement about a service aspect; but conversely it must demonstrate to service providers the most important concerns the community have about their service.  Which at least must take the pain out where to focus attention on what to improve next!

1st Day of Enterprise 2.0, Boston, June 2008

Technorati Tags: Enterprise 2.0, RSS, Keynote

This is a quick summary of my thoughts on the 1st day of Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston, June 2008

Morning Key Notes:

Fedex - Rob Carter CIO:

Discussed the value in networks and connectedness, a digital network must be connected, interoperable with and overlay your physical network. 

Demo’d Fedex Adobe Air client.  Discussed importance of community participation through Facebook for example.

CIA - Intellipedia Wiki:

Discussed the evolution of wiki platform with intelligence community.  It’s replaced powerpoint, become part of core of collaborative tools available.  Discussed best practices for user adoption and rollout - e.g. no anonymous access or edits or comments. 

Google App’s & Cloud & Enterprise 2.0:

Discussed the cloud and consumer space as the next platform and place for innovation in web2.0 and future technologies. 

• Consumer space is and will be the proving ground for enterprise 2.0 software and applications
• Google think the cloud will be the de facto platform for Enterprise & Web 2.0 in the future
• Struggle and challenge of coping with the explosion of digital media, Google has projected storage costs of GMail to be $0 per user!
• Barriers to cloud use are reducing: connectivity, UI, reliability, security (consider level of laptop theft)

Users of cloud app’s, buy into the potential of dynamically evolving applications not the just the current feature set.

AIIM - State of Enterprise 2.0:

Discussed penetration and understanding of Web2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 concepts and potential within the industry (relating AIIM Enterprise 2.0 report).  Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 is a mindset and not a function of the participants age, a baby boomer can use Web 2.0 tech, and a digital native can be subverted by corporate culture back to tradition communication techniques.

SocialText - Ross Mayfield - Address:

Discussed the need to allow the evolution of tools from the bottom up.  Need to move the conversation from the tool set to the solution capability.  Redesign processes by embedding transparency and participation.

Afternoon sessions:

Enterprise RSS:

Managed  RSS services provide: analytics, feed routing, premium news feeds/secure credential management. Relevancy analytics Process integration, content injection into application.  RSS is foundational core of other collaboration platforms and application to exploit.

RSS feeds find their way into tray alerts, contextual “toast”.  Click read, acknowledge reading therefore personal accountability.

Timeliness of information.

Atom protocol is a more flexible and advanced standard compared to RSS.

The Value of Blogging In Business:

No slides in session, just introductions and discussions.

Who is your audience?

• Personal record and content note space, communities of interest, ego-pleasing, channel for communication to commercial or partner opportunities

What is the value of blogging?

• Brings discipline in distilling the knowledge
• Transparency and accessibility - builds trust and reputation
• Fuels engagement and conversation inside and outside
• Blogs can be searched, indexed and more compliant friendly than other traditional silos

“Magic Bullet” for budget conscious CIO’s - observe how their competition is using social media to drive forward their business, source innovation, build on their opportunity base.

Web 2.0 and the New Ethos of Work - Stowe Boyd:

Discussed and describe the evolution of the culture clash and tension between the core/centralised processes and edge driven collaboration centred processes. Change from mass (published) media to social media, few to many, to many to many.

Evolution of personal use change >> workplace cultural change >> government policy change!

Need to change measurement from personal productivity to network productivity.  Don’t measure piece-meal, units and costs, but enablement, value creation and facilitation.

So that ends the sessions I attended.

The best thing of the day - Meeting People

The biggest challenge - talking about solutions not just tools, how to empower & involve the edge

Anything missing:  Identity/Data portability!

My reflections on Gia’s post about Dixie Chicks and Innovation.

Technorati Tags: Innovation, Social networking, Enterprise 2.0

The Dixie Chicks can make people more innovative

First of all, great post Gia!

As you say the pain is in porting an update from one disconnected service to another disconnected service, whether it be avatars or connections/relationships - I find that painful too.

The pseudo connection/relationship import of contacts from email contacts lists; is another pain point for me. I guess email contact lists are relevant for those that have never used social media before; but once you start; the value of that contact list drops dramatically - so I hope they won’t be used for this too long. However, importing from social media is not great at the moment either; this needs working - a primary service would be great.

Re: enterprise - I agree there’s a lot of hard work to be done. I don’t know enough about this area, but clarity about your de facto directory and it’s hygiene are key starting points. Corporations could well spend a lot of time and money sorting that out; and with M&A’s around it can be very tricky.

What are your thoughts in the area of security and policy management? Surely people will want a tool that is proven yet flexible in area of security; so they can decide what is allowed to appear within the corporate environment.  Is SAML something we have all learn some more about?

I also think there’s a long journey/conversation ahead, between the conservatives and guardians (security, legal etc) and the collaborative folks to sort out how this will be achieved. I do think there is strong resistance to idea of external communities even having a pseudo presence inside that corporate fire wall.

On the public side, I look forward to the consolidation of services; we must reach a tipping point soon. Especially in the area of collaborative/social media. A key qualifier will remain the strength of content and frequency of participation. I know from my own experience of Facebook, in my generation (pro - 30’s), the activity drop is significant compared to the younger generation and compared to the novelty value 1st few weeks. It makes me think the collaborative geeks, are really more than a few steps ahead of the real world - how long or what’s needed to make them get in step?

Sorry if I’ve touch on a number of ideas, it seemed a good post to respond with these too.

What I learned from the AIIM UK Roadshow

Technorati Tags: AIIM, ECM, Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0

 

For those who are not aware of what AIIM seeks to do here is a brief summary:

wikipedia - aiim.org

AIIM is a not-for-profit organisation seeking to educate, inform and construct best practice approaches to the use of ECM and DMS within the enterprise. It works with all connected parties as an intermediary body, advocate and professional development organisation.

I attended my 1st AIIM road show in Bolton, Lancashire, UK (at the Reebok Stadium - home of Bolton Wanderers);  I am not from an ECM or Document management background; my interest lies in the encroachment, and proliferation of collaboration technologies within the ECM area.  

The event started with a good summary of the industry and it’s challenges from John Manchini - president of AIIM.

The ECM industry is has a strong core business in the management of records, images, and categorisation, storing and retrieval of that data.  Traditionally there has been little or no impact in the industry of the collaborative toolset (Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 Technologies) that are beginning to impact and influence user interaction with people and content within the enterprise environment.  John spoke to these points and challenges that lay before this facet of the IT business.

However, within the Event itself was a Microsoft SharePoint demo theatre, a showcase for perhaps the most widely adopted collaboration enabling platform MS has ever produced, which has strong extension points into the ECM and Records management solution area. This demonstrated the reach of change within this industry, and the need for the ECM to respond and adapt to this change.

During the road show there was an “Enterprise 2.0″ roundtable discussion session which was chaired by John.  Some of the material used as a catalyst for discussion was the AIIM Enterprise 2.0 report produced from a survey of approximately 400 users. 

Enterprise 2.0 Roundtable Discussion:

Around the table were about 10 people, mainly from IT administration and obviously related to ECM.  This was quite a lot lower in turnout in comparison with other round table events.

• This was consistent with the emerging technology that Collaboration & Enterprise 2.0 respects within the ECM industry.

After describing what AIIM (and generally acknowledged as) Web 1.0, Web 1.5 and Web 2.0, we discussed aspects of social media/social networking impacting on people’s lives.

• Even within the audience of mainly technical people, the use of and subsequent understanding of these social media/social networking tools was low.
• It shows that the even within the IT administration/IT geek space Web 2.0 and Enterprise is not as prevalent as some would think.

We described if anyone was using social media/social networking tools within the Enterprise - “Enterprise 2.0″ in their organisations.

• Not surprisingly this was low, and those that had discussions about the implementation of such tools, came up against a good deal of impediments.
• If there were Enterprise 2.0 tools available, the update and adoption was limited or slow, or mainly amongst the IT group.  Therefore the line of business departments weren’t gaining benefit from Enterprise 2.0 tools, even when available.

In conclusion:

If the ECM industry is representative of sectors of the Information Technology industry not directly involved in Enterprise 2.0/social networking technologies, then they are not aware of developments and advantages in that area that may be applicable to them. 

User adoption and your approach to user adoption is critical to the use and uptake any Enterprise 2.0 technology on offer.

How I got started in Notes

Technorati Tags: Lotus Notes

Well it’s fairly simple really…

I’ve only had one employer since graduating from UMIST (University of Manchester) with an Honours degree in Mechanical Engineering. I did a year out with Careforce, a Christian volunteer organisation for pre or post graduates. I worked in a hostel for homeless young men in Manchester for year. 

It was during that year out that I applied for various graduate posts in both engineering and IT companies. I’m grateful that the opportunity came from an IT company. My observation of and contact with engineers, is that is a more static and conservative industry in which to chart a career; and can be more vulnerable to pressures within an economy.

My first experience of a Notes client was within my 1st week at work (after all that induction stuff).  I had to complete and sign-off on a number of CBTs (Danger, Danger! - Notes newbie!); before being let loose on a Notes 4.5.3a client on a Windows NT4 workstation. My first role was an NT4 (Windows) administration and support for customer of ours. 

From there I went through a series of short-term placement (6 months); in VMS/Vax Administration (learnt DCL); was a business analyst for a pre-Y2K infrastructure refresh and desktop rollout.  It was during that time as a business analyst I meet my friend and colleague Stuart. My final placement was in the Notes administration team that Stuart was soon to become team lead; I was glad to be offered a permanent place on the team, and so as they say “the rest is history.”

One thing I’ve always found to be an advantage with Notes is its independence of workstation credentials (Workgroup/AD etc).  I think I’ve spent at least half my years or more working a customer  Windows domain or network; but always (apart from serious power or network outages) be able to connect to my employer’s Notes/Domino domain.  Also as an Notes administrator it was necessary to run multiple ids and domains; I wonder what the record is for the number of Notes domains managed from a single client?

I’ve worked with Stuart in various administration and project roles for around 5-6 years. Achieving Dual PCLP in both Notes 5 and Notes 6. As my career has advanced my role has been increasingly project based with a good dose of infrastructure or architectural know-how required.

Since the start of 2008, I have been in my new role as a Technical Product Manager. My particular area of ownership is team project or workspaces; so I look after solution offering from an engineering point of view for products such IBM WebSphere Portal, Microsoft SharePoint, IBM Lotus Quickr etc.

Next?

TwitNotes v1.0

Technorati Tags: Twitter, Twitnotes, Twitpic, Twhirl

 

Thanks to Twitter I found out about this great plug-in for the Notes v8.x client. 

Created by lekkim & http://lekkimworld.com/

Here’s a print screen of my new sidebar.

It can also be found at http://twitpic.com/3xt

which is another integration point for the Twhirl twitter client; Twitpic allow you to post images URL links into twitter.

 

These are two great examples of extensible apis (Twitter/Twhirl/Twitpic & Notes/Eclipse/Twitter) being put to great use. As well demonstrating the value of social networks to deliver a tangible asset for the collaboration and productivity of its users.

Why I like Twitter

A short post… this link to the Commoncraft show was brought to me via Twitter; and has been blogged many times already.

But I like what Commoncraft do, and I like Twitter; they explain it better than me.

Technorati Tags: Commoncraft, Twitter

Impressive social calendar tool, and use of Qik

Unfortunately I don’t have a handset that can take advantage of the Qik service; but I am continued to be convinced the video format; either in blogs or micro-blogs is going to increase in prevalence.

Here’s an example from Rob Scoble, about a demonstration of social calendar tool that integrates with Twitter and Flickr.  The great thing about this tool is the way it links people and activities together via the contents of their Tweets!

http://www.qik.com/video/17469

http://www.qik.com/scobleizer

I wish the WordPress support for embedded videos was more extensive!

 

Technorati Tags: mixin, social calendar, twitter, qik

Starting out on Seesmic

Technorati Tags: seesmic, twitter, social networking

 

Came across this in Read/Write web [http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/seesmic_vs_twitter.php] the other day. Seesmic

So I thought I’d give it a go.  I’m guessing this is the next one up from Twitter - and they already working together. 

It’s updating my Twitter feeds too!

Nice!

Here’s my debut cast (if it can be seen from the blogosphere - not sure about access/public restrictions)

Direct Link: http://seesmic.com/v/qJEJxmdy7H

May be I’ll be seeing you there soon!

Exchange and Lotus (again)

Technorati Tags: Lotus, Exchange, comparison

Ok, this debate is nothing new. 

Stumbled upon this using the Terraminds search function for Twitter within the Twhirl client.

http://itcomparison.com/Mail/Exchange2k7vslotus8/Exchange2k7vslotus8.htm (Last updated: 09-01- 200

Unfortunately… these guys (http://www.itcomparison.com/aboutus.htm)

“IT Comparison team consist of many IT Professionals who work for
several enterprise firms. Our team has first hand experience with most of
the products compared on this site. ”

…remain to some extent hidden; and this review is one of the few software comparisons  available. 

However, presuming they are who they say:  Then I welcome and the review/opinion of a group of professionals, who should be interested in providing an objective review and remain independent of the vendors.

Also the format is also useful…  providing a rating and comments about certain performance and functionality aspects within the product.

I hope that this site continues to provide this type of output.  I wonder why they feel need this type of site; aren’t there already sites/forums like this available!

Their home page:  http://www.itcomparison.com/index.html

However, as their forum uncovers in 5 posts; the sides of this debate are so loyal/stubborn I think it will be hard for an honest objective review to receive that type of acknowledgement from both camps.