Monthly Archives: August 2008

Reflecting on Enterprise 2.0 for Information Professionals

Last week I attended the second day of Key Forum’s Enterprise 2.0 for Information Professionals conference and I blogged some short summaries of each presentation. I thought might add some more reflective thoughts on the whole of that day:

  • Neither open source or proprietary tools won out. People are picking the tools that make sense within the context of their strategy, available skill set, functionality and budget – what’s right for one is not necessarily right for another. For example, Andrew Mitchell highlighted Mediawiki‘s text editor as key functional weakness that would make him think twice about using it for a broader deployment in his company. Andrew also reminded us again of the distinction between truth (business records if you like?) and information that was useful at a point in time (transitory information or conversational collaboration?) – unfortunately some organisations treat all information as a record and need to capture both types. IMHO addressing record keeping is a big gap in the enterprise social computing space.
  • There is still a need to help cross the divide between those who understand the social computing concept and explaining this to the rest of the business. Of course, those that have experienced Web 2.0 now have an expectation of access to a similar environment internally. I can’t help but think of this as a classic technology innovation process.
  • There did appear to be a consensus that Enterprise 2.0 isn’t a free for all – some level of structure, order, control and support is needed. For example, don’t expect the right kind of order to emerge in a forum or Wiki if you start with a completely blank sheet. Be open, while retaining the power to moderate but in practice avoid doing it!
  • From a business perspective I noticed that there are still some concerns about how social media might both mitigate and contribute to information overload – that is by reducing the size of our inbox, we end up requiring more demand for people’s attention from other tools. My take on this is that social media technologies can only help to reduce information overload where the skills exist, but users lack the appropriate tools.
  • The Ernst & Young Facebook case study also raised some interesting issues about online identity if you are asked to represent your organisation online – there is a real need for the employer to ensure the employee understands how to protect their privacy in the Web 2.0 environment.

However, the one thing I didn’t get a sense of from the day was the level of impact Enterprise 2.0 was actually having on local organisations in terms of radical change. Clearly enterprise social computing is having a benefit to collaboration, but I think we are still a long way from seeing a real Enterprise 2.0 in the wild.

Redesigning the NSW DPI Intranet

The NSW Department of Primary Industries intranet was picked out earlier in the year as being one of the world’s top 10 intranets. These slides outline the process they went through for the redesign that won them this recognition:

NSW DPI Intranet Redesign

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: intranet redesign)

IPP looking for Recruitment Consultant with a "smile"

This is IPP‘s first attempt at using social media tools like YouTube to help us stand out from the crowd, but we are also looking at other ways to use video in the recruitment process. Watch IPP’s recruitment and contracting manager, Kaitlan Murray, explain why you should come and work for IPP as a recruitment consultant…

Read the rest of the ad on Seek.com.au.

Enterprise 2.0 for Information Professionals

I’m at the second day of Enterprise 2.0 for Information Professionals, thanks to a complimentary invite from Key Forums as I’m presenting at another event later in the year.

  • Paul McDonald (Gilbert + Tobin) – presenting "naked" (that is, without the PowerPoint) I missed the start of Paul’s entertaining session on the golden rules of Enterprise 2.0, but was around for a group discussion activity on some rules that I’ll share my thoughts on later; and
  • Matt Moore – currently talking about using social software to reduce email overload (Matt has promised to post his presentation and a related podcast online soon).

Coming up later today are Alexei Fey (Savings & Loans Credit Union), Kate Carruthers, Sharon Cartwright, Andrew Mitchell (Urbis) and Lindy McKeown.

UPDATES:

  • Alexei Fey – interesting tour of Savings & Loans‘ adventures in social computing, including how they use Facebook (20% of staff utilise it), their external blogs, the history of failure and then success with an internal forum, their alumni program, how they stay in touch with absent staff and marketing – his overall message, investing in this technology is cheaper than low staff morale (and you can reduce costs through open source and bringing the work inside);
  • Kate Carruthers – explains why deploying social computing isn’t like rolling out an ERP system and provides a Machiavellian view of introducing enterprise 2.0, including an overview of drivers (e.g. social networking traffic now greater than email) and implications (e.g. findability – social computing inside the firewall will add to existing information management problems);
  • Sharon Cartwright – how Ernst & Young is using Facebook for recruitment, although apparently E&Y doesn’t allow its use from inside the firewall;
  • Andrew Mitchell – Andrew has previously shared his experiences with using wikis at Urbis at the NSW KM Forum; and
  • Lindy McKeown – talking about using Second Life (and other 3D environments) in education – Lindy is working with the University of Southern Queensland to develop their Virtual Worlds Strategy.

The iPhone Cometh (to the Enterprise, like it not)

Having played around with an iPhone in the Apple store in Sydney, I’ve been reflecting on the hype and talking to an Apple guru I know, Damian Damjanovski, to understand better how and where it fits as an enterprise business technology.

Personally I think there is a lot of misinformation flying around about the iPhone from all sides, however I did enjoy this comment:

"I don’t recall Apple going after the Enterprise…More the Enterprise came after Apple."

Lets not forget how the BlackBerry first infiltrated the enterprise. If I worked for enterprise IT, I’d want to be on the front foot with the iPhone this time around. Perhaps this explains why a law firm like Mallesons Stephen Jaques is evaluating the iPhone sooner, rather than later? To me, that sounds like a smart move.

What do you think?

Plenty of Open Source choices for the enterprise

Browsing through InfoWorld’s list of the best open source (and freeware) software for 2008, I naturally zeroed in on the list of collaboration tools. However other than Elgg, a social networking platform, the rest of the social software winners are the typical list of suspects for blogging and wikis,  e.g. WordPress and Mediawiki. As a side note, personally I wouldn’t automatically pick Mediawiki as the best option for your organisation without understanding some of your key requirements – e.g the technical platform you want to run it on, security needs, etc.

The enterprise applications space offers a much more interesting selection, if only because of the diverse range of enterprise functions covered. With the exception of email and calendaring (listed under the collaboration category), the enterprise applications category includes tools for BI, BPM, CRM, ECM, ERP, Portals, Project Management and Reporting. If you aren’t currently using open source, then certainly no one can argue you don’t have a choice of where to dip your toe into the open source water!

However, on reflection I noticed the list has quite a few areas missing that might interest me, such as:

  • Tools to help with findability, like search and tagging;
  • Enterprise RSS;
  • Mashing;
  • Instant messaging and persistent chat; and
  • Microblogging.

Any suggestions anyone?

BTW I would be really interested to talk anyone in my part of the world who is making use of open source enterprise collaboration and business applications.

IIM event in Sydney: Managing Information in 2008 and Beyond – A Practical Perspective (13th August)

Just doing my bit to help promote this IIM event during August:

"The presentation examines the risks inherent in managing information in today’s technology-enabled business world, and provides some guidance on how to deal with these risks.

By generating increasing numbers of transactions and volumes of information (data, documents, web content and records), information technologies have stimulated the generation of even more information and at a faster rate. Practical approaches to mitigate information risk management are often overlooked by organisations."

See the IIM Website for more information and how to register (note: this event is free but you must register before 7th August).