The Ponderings of Woodrow

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: Why Scoble is right AND wrong about enterprise software

Robert Scoble, made quasi-famous for blogging early and often while an employee at Microsoft, now rarely revisits topics that revolve around enterprise computing. But this weekend, in reaction to comments recently made by Bill Gates, Scoble opines about why enterprise software isn't sexy or more specifically why it doesn't garner the attention that consumer-centric software does.

He comes to the following conclusions:

1. Bill Gates is right, bloggers and journalists DO prefer to talk about consumer technologies
2. The buyers of enterprise software are a minority that doesn't consult with the majority of the users before making decisions
3. Media are paid to deliver eyeballs; and talking about consumer topics generates a lot more of them

He concludes his missive with a question:

Any of you have any ideas on how to make business software sexy?

Finally, he asks for we Enterprise Irregulars to weigh in on the topic:

I wonder what the Enterprise Irregulars think about this? (They are a group of bloggers who cover business software).

Scoble asked what we Irregulars thought, and boy did he get some answers:

• Michael Krigsman, one of the newest Irregulars, offers a passioned response and suggests that Scoble is asking the wrong question
• Dennis Howlett reminds Scoble that sexy is far, far different from influential
• Vinnie Mirchandani is "damn proud to be unsexy"
• Anshu Sharma offers five types of software that turn CIOs on
• Sadagopan also emphasizes that that blog traffic in no way equates to influence in the real sense
• Dan Farber explains that enterprise topics are worth blogging about, quality of readership trumps quantity
• Ross Mayfield thinks enterprise software developers can/must and will do better
• Craig Cmehil reminds us that those consumer technologies everyone gushes about are provided to us by enterprises
• Phil Wainewright reminds us that software is boring, and always will be, for most of the population

I am really proud of the diversity and thoughtfulness that many of my fellow Irregulars brought to bear on this topic over the last 48 hours.

At the end of the day, beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.

<=== I'm no George Clooney, but my wife finds me sexy (I hope!). Heck, even Bea Arthur managed to get married...TWICE!

The consumerization of software is underway; but it's absolutely a SLOW GOING process within large enterprises. I think it's vitally important to keep perspective.

Good software, whether it's sold for millions of dollars to a Fortune 500 CIO or distributed freely to millions of users directly and paid for by advertising, is only as good as the processes it enables.

It can't be said enough...it's not about the code, it's about the PROCESS!

Make users lives easier. Sounds simple, but it's really not.

software sexy scoble enterprise enterprise irregulars woodrow

Don Tapscott joins BSG Alliance

Susan Scrupski left the Garden State (where I call home) to move to Texas and join the BSG Alliance. Today, she let another big cat out of the bag. BSG Alliance is merging with New Paradigm; best known as Don Tapscott's company. I've been a big fan of Tapscott since hearing him speak right after college; and devoured his Digital Divide book which was way ahead of its time (he basically predicted the emergence of social media platforms before any of us know our MySpace from a crawlspace). Since then I've run into him many times at various and sundry conferences, most recently at Enterprise 2.0 in Boston. Don is a well-known author, consultant and speaker. Currently, his book Wikinomics is sitting on a great many best-seller lists. I recently included it on my list of 2007 books; and Amazon.com nominated it as one of the best books of the year.

• BSG Alliance and New Paradigm Alliance Videocast

Don understands cultural change and its impact on business better than most. And the prospect of his insight and outward facing presence in conjunction with the BSG team should be a compelling one.

Congratulations to all concerned, and my apologies for not being able to make it to the Marriott today for the conference. Thank goodness for Veodia and vidcasting.

bsgalliance newparadigm dontapscott susanscrupski enterprise irregulars woodrow

Postini = Google's Most Enterprisey Acquisition Yet

OK, chances are this is not the first blog post you've read about Google's $625mm purchase of Postini today. At last count, Techmeme had 1,003 posts on the subject.

Google has been so acquisitive this year it's hardly news that they made another acquisition. But Postini is a horse (acquisition) of a different color; squarely focused on providing solutions to the enterprise. They provide a host of messaging security and infrastructure services to more than 35,000 companies and 10,000,000 users. Postini processes more than 2 billion SMTP connections and block more than 1 billion spam messages every single day.

A quick word of congratulations to Ryan, Brad and the rest of the Foundry Team. There are a lot of interesting nuances to this deal, not the least of which is the fact Postini was considered a likely IPO this year. So many of my favorite bloggers have written about this deal today, I'm simply going to hand it off to them:

• Ryan blogs about the deal from his perspective:

...What attracted us most to Postini was (FOUNDER) Scott Petry's vision of building out a true platform company built around the simple notion that email had become more important to corporate America than the telephone. A company that could build a suite of services around messaging would have the potential to harness a huge customer base given the broad horizontal nature of email. The total addressable market was every email address in the world.

Equally important was Postini's architecture and deployment model. Postini was a SaaS company well before SaaS was cool, and probably even before the acronym of SaaS had been coined. We loved the ease of deployment (just a change to the MX record in DNS) and the recurring revenue subscription model. And while the most notable SaaS companies to date have been built around specific vertical business applications, Postini is arguably among the first SaaS infrastructure companies...[continued]

• Bill Burnham hits the nail on the head with his analysis. I implore you to read his entire analysis, but here are his key takeaways:
  • Google is going after Microsoft Exchange [I agree]
  • Postini puts Google much closer to functional parity [I agree, presuming tighter integration]
  • This is bad news for traditional anti-spam vendors [I agree, in principle]
  • Google has put together an impressive set of hosted applications [I wholeheartedly agree]
  • Google can AND does pay up for assets it views strategically [How can I not agree?]
  • When Google is interested, they've yet to be outbid [Agreed]

• Cote breaks down the deal as part of the broader Microsoft vs. Google meme, and ultimately argues that Google is too smart to attack Microsoft using a traditional enterprise sales model:

The point for me is simple: Google wants people to use it’s software and click on its ads. Sure, it may not be on purpose that that means pulling people away from Microsoft software and services. Nonetheless, it means competing to get attention and dollars that could otherwise go to Microsoft and other vendors. What irks me most about this position is not the people who espouse it — like I said, “potato,” “patato” — but that Google itself seems so, well, goofy when it tries to weave and duck on the issue.

The question for Google isn’t “are you competing with Microsoft?” The question is more along the lines of: do you want as much of Microsoft’s attention-cum-revenue as you can get?

As an enterprise-focused technologist, this deal piqued my curiosity much more than the DoubleClick and YouTube deals. This is not to dismiss their potential strategic value, but rather, this is the first evidence I've seen that Google is ready to take the kid gloves off outside of the ad-driven model.

Note: This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any publicly-traded security. This discussion is merely a personal analysis to foster discussion for informational purposes only. At the time of this writing, I and/or funds I maintain discretionary control over, maintained a long equity position in MSFT but did not maintain a position (long or short) in GOOG or any of the other companies mentioned. We reserve the right to initiate positions in any of these companies at any time in the future. At times, we may maintain derivative options as a hedge on underlying positions.

postini google m&a investing ondemand saas security foundrygroup woodrow enterprise+irregulars

Facebook: Now that's a platform...

Facebook has been, by any measure, a runaway success story. Yet, because of its original nature [exclusively for college students], I never really peeled back the layers of the onion and figured it was something "not meant for me." But as most of you know, Facebook has opened its kimono to everyone and, in the process, has become far more accessible for old (class of '96) fogies like me.

Even so, it wasn't until the last two weeks that I've really begun to understand what Facebook represents. I've never been much of a MySpace guy, so I still had little reason to think Facebook would be beneficial for the way I network, communicate, and collaborate. That is, until I started getting invites from colleagues around the world asking me to become their Facebook friends. I would've chalked up one or two requests as random curiosity on the part of my friends, but dozens? That was worth creating a profile and checking it out.

Within minutes I could already see Facebook would be more useful to me than LinkedIn. You can add a layer of detail to your interpersonal relationships that LinkedIn has failed to embrace.

And then I read Marc Andreessen's blog post analyzing Facebook. Make no mistake, Andreessen has taken to blogging in a way few can rival. In fact, it almost pains me to read his blog now because in a matter of weeks he's mastered a form of expression I still toil at after 18 months actively blogging.

Marc does a fantastic job explaining what Facebook is, why it's far more important than many realize, and why it's only going to get more important.

[Marc's Blog] Analyzing the Facebook Platform three weeks in...

After spending some time building up my Facebook Profile and talking to colleagues about its power as a platform, my mind began racing about how Facebook (and other popular social networking sites like MySpace) is potentially disruptive in a way that many corporate focused "platforms" really aren't. I've spent a fair amount of time dissecting Salesforce.com's AppExchange, and SAP's SDN, and WebEx Connect; yet none of these hold the power that Facebook has, in my view. Despite feeling like I was onto something intuitively, I have been racking my brain to articulate why Facebook is more important than the aforementioned business platform plays.

Thanks to my good buddy Jeff, I no longer need to worry. Jeff hits the nail on the head as he posits the importance of Facebook and why it's different from other "platforms" we hear about so often in the world of enterprise software.

• [Jeff's Blog] Distribution is the new ecosystem play...

...Without question the large vendors look at Myspace and Facebook as mere toys and that reflects as much a misunderstanding of what these things are as it does the cultural disconnect that many enterprise software executives have with the broader market. They will say things like "our customers don’t use those services" without considering that while the CIO isn’t using them it’s an odds on favorite that a good number of people in the organization are.

It’s also worth pointing out that enterprise vendors consistently put themselves at the center of the universe like an aging movie star that doesn’t realize s/he is told old to play the role (think Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct 2). SAP/Oracle/Microsoft/IBM may be the gorillas in the global enterprise market but selling to 50,000 global customers out of a market of 100 million businesses (that’s a guess, I don’t know what the actual stat is) is hardly going to drive the growth each is predicting. This dovetails with something else I talk about frequently, selling to users instead of organizations.

The initiatives that each of the MISO vendors have spawned around widgets is a good start, but it’s not enough. Prosumer users really require the ability to create rich applications outside of the usual development platform, and to that degree SAP and Oracle in particular should be expanding their API support to include Facebook and Myspace integration...[cont.]

When we talk about things like "Enterprise 2.0", I think the myopic view that focuses on new tools [i.e., wikis, tools, RSS aggregators] completely misses the sea-change we're undertaking. We've all been asking ourselves when (and if?) business-centric analogs would emerge for the massively successful social networking platforms; without realizing that these sites may BE THEIR OWN BUSINESS ANALOGS.

What's going to be the Enterprisey version of Facebook? FACEBOOK.

enterprise2conf enterprise 2.0 platform facebook marcandreessen jeffnolan enterprise irregulars woodrow

Enterprise 2.0 Conference: Launch Pad 2007

Launch Pad 2007 was one of the better sessions today. Four startups get 6 minutes to make their pitch, and are then critiqued by Stowe Boyd and Dave Coleman for one minute each. It's a classic riff on the elevator pitch, and is an easily digestible way to get exposure. Frankly, I wish ALL the companies participating in the Demo Pavilion were required to do this sort of thing, a startup should be able to articulate its value proposition in a few minutes under any circumstance.

The four presenting companies were:

• Collanos --"Within minutes you can be sharing documents, having online discussions, and managing tasks, all in a single, consolidated space. Built on reliable peer-to-peer technology, Collanos Workplace software allows you to work anywhere, anytime, both online and offline."
• Clarizen -- "Clarizen enables on-demand, enterprise-grade project management for everyone. Active participation and secure cooperation lead to true team collaboration, while up-to-the-minute live knowledge helps align project data with business objectives. These unique benefits are derived through Software as a Service (SaaS) - which requires no software and no dedicated hardware - and the freedom of communication of Web 2.0."
• LiquidTalk -- "LiquidTalk, Inc. helps leading-edge companies envision and act on the revenue growth opportunities that mobile technologies present.  We create enterprise business applications for digital media devices (iPods, smart phones, etc.). Our patent-pending technology combined with our professional services enable new ways for businesses to create, organize, and distribute business content for sales enablement and employee learning and communication."
• KnowNow -- "More Fortune 1000 companies entrust KnowNow to bridge the information gap between the people and data that drive their business.  KnowNow monitors and pushes live, relevant information to users, instantly.  KnowNow’s live information management solutions increase productivity and enable timely, profitable decisions for some of the most respected organizations in the world, including AMD, BurrellesLuce, CSAA, Union Bank of California, and Wells Fargo."

Here are my raw notes from the presentations:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Collanos
Cross Group Collaboration

Current Options Fall Short

• E-Mail [not good for teamwork]
• On-Demand [very broad category]
• Enterprise IT not suited for ad hoc team situation

Collanos' approach:

• Serverless Synchronized P2P Workspaces
• Install onto your computer [for a workplace]
• Invite members, synched automatically in background with other team members
  • No central server
  • Data is fully redundant b/c copy is on your machine

UI looked a lot like Outlook

• Versioning
• Doc types
• Unlimited projects

Today, we're announcing new feature set...VOICE SERVICES

• Ability to call members and start voice conference calls
• Collanos Phone, for voice and video calls also includes IM

Collanosphere...why we're a game changer
P2P approach is the way to go [not server centric solutions will always remain islands]

Workplace was released 6 months ago, getting decent coverage
Voice and video available as of today

ANALYST CRITIQUE

David: Interesting that you talked about what other companies don't do versus what you DO do. P2P is interesting, having redundant data brought up a problem with security [e.g., HIPPA compliance]...if everyone has versions on their laptops and desktop, that could be a security problem. Seeing you guys add asynchronous support is a nice improvement.

Stowe: Not sure the world needs yet another distributed, collaborative tool. Like Groove [Ray Ozzie's company], technology is P2P. I don't see how you can avoid server-side sync ultimately. Phone integration is interesting, but still maintaining a top-down group oriented look and feel to the UI and the invitation process seems undifferentiated. The world is a lot messier than that.

My Take: Far too many nebulous slides and buzzwords. I think this demo did the company a disservice in that I was left with no interest in getting to know them better. Seemed very "me too" save for the P2P angle which, as David mentioned, struck me as a tough sell in an enterprise environment.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Clarizen
On-Demand, Collaborative Project Management for Your Business

18 months old company founded by execs from project management, enterprise software and On-demand markets

Key Success Factors

• Deliver on time
• Meet market needs
• Operate efficiently

What's changed in project management?

• Business environment is much more dynamic
• Projects are complex
• Static is now dynamic

What's different about Clarizen?

• Adoption
• Teamwork
• Knowledge

Combination of enterprise software and Web 2.0

Manage all projects in one place [360 degree view]
Collaborative Project Networks TM

• Share common objectives but maintain security and individuality
• Achieve True Team Collaboration
  • Shows demo of sharing email, comments, message board posts, links, documents

Provide your users with a system they love [great point!]
*** Unique email interaction

Over 100 design partners (Ford, Mindspeed, etc...)
FREE BETA [www.clarizen.com]

ANALYST CRITIQUE

Stowe: Many people have come before where you're going. How similar to what you're doing to eRoom, which was bought by Documentum, now EMC. These aren't tremendously new ideas, foldering, task lists, document sharing, been around a long time. Not bad idea, but it's not 2.0 to me.

David: These are Web 1.5 tools. Some of this, some of that. Not really all the way there. We've done a lot of work at Collaborative Strategy on CPM tools and we found the tool needs to cut down the time of interaction between the tasks. Cutting down cycle time between tasks, usually around communication
and interaction. Didn't see any real-time functionality in this, would help a whole lot.

My Take: I thought this was a much tighter presentation that hit on some important points [i.e., making tools simple and enjoyable for end users]. The demo seemed functional, and while I agree with David and Stowe that it didn't look like a 2.0 tool; that may help it in this environment where hybrid models are more digestible for IT buyers.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

LiquidTalk
Provide mobile knowledge for mobile workforce

Reality Check...How many of you are checking your Blackberry? [raised hands]

• Out of time, we're out of the office
• Few cracks in the day to get things done
• Few chances to connect in real time

Founded LiquidTalk to solve those problems in the workplace

Problems we solve:

1. Increasingly remote workforce...limited collaboration, knowledge transfer difficult, productivity lost during travel, commute
2. Talent acquisition...Web 2.0 generation, expect information immediacy, value place on peer input, hooked on mobile devices
3. Roles getting tougher, expectations higher...rising turnover rates, high dependency on star employees, less satisfaction

A disconnected, disengaged workforce

Mobile Workforce Engagement

• Create, find, organize and push audio/video business content to mobile devices
• Wherever, whenever
• Leverages most powerful means for collaboration
• Drives more productive teams

DEMO of the service:

• LiquidTalk portal [tabs = Library, Survey, Playlist, Media, Inbox, Home]
  • Some are automatically synced to his device
  • Others he can opt to sync
  • Others are pushed to him by his CEO
• Make it as easy as iPod [a digital briefcase in their pocket]

LiquidCast...phone in podcast [recorded on $30 bluetooth], press a button and its' uploaded into the LiquidTalk system

WENT OVER THE ALLOTED TIME

ANALYST CRITIQUE

David: A little bit more interesting. Would love to see what you do in one slide, versus 5 or 6. This struck me more as a DVR for business training and conversations. It does time shift the conversation; which is what I use my DVR for TV. You're more like Tivo for business than iTunes for business. I listen to podcasts quite often, but I don't always find it transfers knowledge, it transfers information but not knowledge.

Stowe: Expected something quite different from what your buildup was. It's intriguing but have a sense this is better as a set of features integrated into a broader application, i.e., a plug in into Salesforce.com. The notion that people have to create those files and then sync them seems like too much work for me, but if this was part of a larger process [e.g., the weekly sales update on SfDC], it would be more interesting.

My Take: The best demo so far. The CEO had real energy and spoke from a position of experience. He clearly knows the trials and tribulations a mobile sales rep faces in keeping connected with corporate information flow. I think David's analogy to Tivo was spot on, and this struck me as a tool I would gladly use and would be a great add-on for Salesforce.com [much as Stowe suggested].

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

KnowNow
The Live Information Management Application for Today's Enterprise

VP Tech Services did the demo [worked for Epiphany and Clarify]
Has experience working and supporting software that people don't like to use

The Status Quo: Insufficient

• Email is overused...50% is junk
• Static portals are broken...<20% find portals useful
• Search isn't the answer...<50% of searches are successful

Imagine a day when Inbox doesn't equal a junk drawer

• Needs change, results change
• Information finds you
• 10 results, not 200,000
• No search button

Persistent monitoring [we don't store or move data, just track where it is in its native environment]

• 7 years old
• Strong security
• Content-based routing
• Aggregation
• Alerts/Notifications
• Filering/Matching
• Transformation
• Security

Launching KnowNow Live today at the show

Looks very much like iGoogle or NetVibes

Includes internal content [looking at a Sharepoint site]

• Project portal
• Process management
• Easy to ass content [added drag and drop for Engadget channel]
• Can view content inline

DEMO ENDED ABRUPTLY AND PREMATURELY

ANALYST CRITIQUE

Stowe: More demo and less pitch. [applause]...let the demos speak for themselves. I'm all for the core sentiment of things finding their way to me, versus me finding things. Just see you having a real hard battling the ECM guys [IBM, EMC, Microsoft] who may not provide as elegant a solution but a functional one. Like the message, but see a tough road. 9,000 other people like you in the space.

David: Originally met KnowNow 1.5 years ago at an RSS conference. In the Web 2.0 space, those who are doing aggregation will make the money. The individual functions will end up being part of services to do aggregation. Think you're following the right track there. The fact information finds you is good. I gave up doing a newsletter and use it as an RSS feed. You have a lot of good customers, is it 9x better than email.

My Take: KnowNow was doing a nice job, I thought but ran long and we didn't get to see much of the demo. I was a tad familiar with this company [unlike the other three] and it was interesting to see them moving away from their RSS-centric focus. All in all, this seems like the most mature business of the bunch, but didn't strike me as original as LiquidTalk.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The audience was asked to vote for their favorite and, from memory, more than 40% chose KnowNow. I personally voted for LiquidTalk because it felt like the most focused and differentiated idea of the bunch.

enterprise2conf enterprise 2.0 IT conference enterprise irregulars woodrow

 

EI Dinner...good food, good friends, good ideas

This evening, the Enterprise Irregulars descended on La Famiglia Giorgio restaurant in Boston for a get together. As with all EI get-togethers, I was sure it would be a worthwhile experience, but tonight proved to be particularly entertaining.

• While Andrew McAfee and I may agree on the importance of Enterprise 2.0, we vehemently disagree about the place Led Zeppelin holds in the rock 'n roll pantheon
• Luckily, Andrew came to his senses when it came to ranking the Beatles (best all time) and Ray Charles (more important than Elvis) among music greats
• Virtualization is a grossly underappreciated tectonic shift in the technology landscape. Calling VMWare the most important IPO in the last five years would hardly be a stretch
• The quest for platforms continues apace, with an ever-decreasing line between consumerized portals (e.g., Facebook, MySpace) and enterprise portals (e.g., AppExchange, WebEx)
• Facebook is a MUCH more important platform play than I realized
• Google is going about things in the right way, they are building a development community and charging nothing for it
• The situation with Yahoo! is a house divided, some believe Jerry will bring much needed change, while others wonder why he represents any major change at all
• We have some brilliantly talented entrepreneurs in the group, including Neil Robertson (Newmerix), Greg Reinacker (NewsGator) and Charlie Wood (Spanning Sync)
• Atlassian is an impressive company. Self-funded, cash flow positive, significant revenue base with a high growth rate. Yet, the founders are in no rush to monetize their company. They're more focused on pushing toward $100mm revenue mark and expanding levels of employee ownership. I had the chance to spend time with Jeff Walker (CEO) and Scott Farquar (co-founder) this week and they are top notch guys, both personally and professionally
• There are a ton of startups at the conference that fall into the "me too" category, but it only takes one or two of them to emerge to make the entire effort worth the while
• I may not be the best looking Wood in the Irregulars, but I'm damn sure the youngest :)
• There is a lot of fear that the U.S. equity market is due for a major correction, and some are wondering when we'll see an end to the M&A engine
• The Enterprise Irregulars is a powerful community, and we haven't begun to tap into its potential
• EI should be a sounding board for ideas big and small
• We underestimate our impact and presence within the enterprise technology ecosystem
• EI is powered by the confluence of disparate viewpoints; the value is in the differences, not where we agree
• We, as a group, need to do a better job of eating what we grow. There are a lot of collaborative tools to increase the effectiveness of our day-to-day communication, and we've done a poor job of leveraging them

I probably left out a lot of meaningful nuggets, but these will do for now. If you were at the dinner and think I missed something, say so in the comments. Otherwise, until next time...

enterprise2conf enterprise 2.0 IT conference enterprise irregulars woodrow

McAfee vs. Davenport: McAfee wins 12-rounder on points

As promised, the Enterprise 2.0 conference started off with a much ballyhooed debate between Tom Davenport and Andrew McAfee over the importance of Enterprise 2.0. Dan Farber moderated the discussion and, in his usual manner, asked poignant questions and knew when to get the conversation moving on in another direction.

Overall, there was more agreement than disagreement, which speaks to the courteous and professional nature of both participants. Unfortunately, I think the debate left a little something on the table as a result. There were times, in my humble opinion, when they both had VASTLY different viewpoints on a subject but refused to cut into one another's underlying premise. Again, not surprising, but as an observer I would've liked to see a little more passionate opinion than dispassionate logic.

Is it evolutionary or revolutionary?

Boiling down their disagreements to the core, it comes down to Davenport believing the large corporations have an embedded culture that changes slowly and over time. Enterprise 2.0 technologies, in and of themselves, aren't revolutionary enough progressions to alter the glacial nature of changing business processes. Meanwhile McAfee believes we're early in the process, but we've seen enough anecdotal evidence to suggest we're about to see a tipping point where social, freeform collaborative tools lead to the next way of productivity improvement.

Some Hits (& Misses)

• Why isn't SharePoint considered Enterprise 2.0? -- Davenport tried to point toward Microsoft SharePoint as evidence that blogs and wikis aren't game-changing technologies. Yet, where he missed the boat is assuming (incorrectly) that SharePoint isn't part of the Enterprise 2.0 revolution. Just because it's a Microsoft product hardly removes it from the equation.
• It's not about the technology, it's about the people -- In this vein, both agreed. The big difference is that Davenport seems to think people can't and won't change, that the inherent nature of today's worker encourages them to protect their silos of knowledge and allowing an open, non-hierarchal platform simply won't work. McAfee agrees that conventional business process is the biggest gating factor to E2.0 adoption, but sees this as an opportunity for "leaders" vs. "bureaucrats."
• We still need proof points -- Andrew freely admits that, to date, we have limited evidence of enterprise-wide adoption of E2.0 practices. Given the nascent state of the market, this is not surprising but neither does it help further the cause. Technology adoption is often a self-fulfilling prophecy, so we need those forward thinking organizations who are embracing E2.0 to open up their doors and be studied. With that, we'll help further the path of adoption.
• The components of SLATES aren't new, but the aggregation of them IS -- Tom took the time to break down each component of SLATES (Search, Linking, Authoring, Tagging, Extensions, Signals) and made the point that we've had variations on those components for decades in many cases. While that's true, he misses the entire point of E2.0. It's the COMBINATION of these components in an easy-to-deploy paradigm that opens the door to evolutionary business practices. This is a classic example of the total being greater than the sum of its parts.

You can watch the entire debate HERE, courtesy of Veodia. Andrew blogged about the experience, and believes the key point of disagreement relates to whether E2.0 is something new:

After one review of the video, it seems to me that our main point of disagreement concerned the extent to which the E2.0 toolkit really is something new, or whether it's just an incremental extension to the longstanding set of technologies for collaboration, interaction, and information sharing. Tom stressed repeatedly that companies have been deploying such tools for decades, and he kept explicitly and implicitly asking the important question:  what, if anything, is new now?

In my opening remarks and a few times subsequently, I tried to articulate my answer to this question: that digital platforms that initially impose little or no structure on interactions, but that contain mechanisms to let patterns and structure emerge over time, are actually quite new. I've written about this a few times before, and for me it's the key to understand what's going on currently, and why so many of us are hopeful that the new toolkit will take off within companies. The idea of using group-level technologies not to impose structure (roles, identities, hierarchy, workflow, data formats, taxonomies, etc.) but instead to try hard to get out of the way and let structure emerge is, I maintain, a pretty novel one. And, I further maintain, a pretty important one.

Dan Farber has a synopsis from his POV as the moderator, and sits squarely on Andrew's side of the "is it new?" debate:

Davenport countered that Enterprise 2.0 doesn’t offer much new and it’s not revolutionary. Tags, search, knowledge management, email and links have been around for years, and haven’t done much to democratize corporate cultures, he said.

That’s like saying the Internet is not new. Yes, it’s been around since 1969, but in the last decade the Internet has revolutionized communications globally. That’s new. Enterprise 2.0 doesn’t have to be completely new to have a significant impact on corporate culture, productivity and competitiveness. Imagine Facebook in a business context, mashing up people and information in ways that help companies run faster, smarter and more efficiently.

In the end, and as a user of Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 technologies and services, I have to side with McAfee’s sense, as opposed to empirical evidence, that Enterprise 2.0 will eventually become mainstream.

I credit Andrew with the win, but not by knock out. While ultimately I think Andrew's view on things is much closer to the reality, one can't dismiss the very early nature of E2.0. We're clearly in a hype cycle right now, it's just a question of whether the promise actually matches the hype. Sometimes it does (targeted ad placement, virtualization), sometimes it doesn't (B2B marketplaces, ESBs). What do you think? Is E2.0 a revolutionary paradigm shift or an evolutionary one?

enterprise2conf enterprise 2.0 IT conference enterprise irregulars woodrow

Enterprise 2.0 Conference Preview...

Tomorrow morning I'm heading off to Boston for the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, which promises to be a tour-de-force. The conference is laser-focused on exploring the way emerging technologies can, and are being used within an enterprise environment. As you know, this is an are of great interest and I'm excited to be a part of this year's event having been unable to fit last year's launch event into my schedule.

The conference schedule speaks for itself.

On a more personal note, there are a number of reasons I'm personally excited about the conference:

• Enterprise Irregulars to the left of me, Enterprise Irregulars to the right of me...This conference is going to be well represented by the Irregulars. Here's a list of those I'm expecting to participate in some capacity [apologies if I forgot anyone!]:

• Jason Corsello
• Mark Crofton
• Dan Farber
• Julia French
• Dion Hinchcliffe
• Jevon MacDonald
• Ross Mayfield
• Andrew McAfee
• Susan Scrupski
• Greg Reinacker
• Niel Robertson
• Charlie Wood
• Jason Wood

• McAfee vs. Davenport...Andrew McAfee coined the term Enterprise 2.0 and no one has been as committed to defining the concept. Meanwhile Tom Davenport has emerged as the Nick Carr of Enterprise 2.0, arguing that its impact is overstated. While you can guess which side of the ledger I sit, it's going to be fascinating to see these two debate the state of the market thanks to a sponsored event by BSG Alliance [where friend and Irregular Susan Scrupski works] and Veodia. Dan Farber will be moderating, to boot. Veodia is providing a live video feed of the debate HERE.

• It's an East Coast event!..The East Coast is grossly underrepresented when it comes to technology conferences and events. While I love the Valley, and understand the importance of the area in terms of driving new technology paradigms, there is a wealth of entrepreneurial energy, innovation and critical thinking outside of the area, too...yes, even on the East Coast. :) It will be nice to not have to change time zones for a change.

• Seeing innovation at work...The demo pavilion is a great place to step out of the echo chamber and see what's REALLY available today in terms of emerging technologies. Nothing is more exciting than having that "WOW" moment when you come upon a team who not only has developed a great technology, but can articulate why it's going to become a great business.

If you're planning on attending, don't hesitate to stop me in the halls and say hello if you're so inclined. My schedule is reasonably full, but if you catch me in a slow moment, it's always nice to put faces with names. Otherwise, count on reading about the goings on here and on many other blogs over the next few days. We're all going to be tagging our posts with the Enterprise2conf tag; which should make it easy to follow if you're using Technorati, Digg, or an aggregator of your choice.

enterprise2conf enterprise 2.0 IT conference enterprise irregulars woodrow

McAfee updates his views on IT productivity...

Andrew McAfee continues to push for a better understanding of information technology and its impact on broader economic measures. His latest missive reexamines the data on IT spending and its ability to drive productivity growth. Last December, Andrew argued in defense of IT productivity gains in spite of some evidence to the contrary:

There's also an intriguing possibility that IT's benefits are now showing up elsewhere in the productivity statistics.  As discussed above, the TFP growth measured by JHS and others is a bit of a catchall category; it includes the impact of faster computers -- the 'IT-related contribution' --  and all productivity improvements that couldn't be assigned to any other source --  the 'other contributions.'

From 1973-1995, these other contributions added only .09 to the yearly average labor productivity growth of 1.39% (all other sources combined contributed the remaining 1.30).  From 1995 to 2004, however, 'other contributions' leapt up to .59.  During this period, in other words, unattributed sources added over half a percentage point to yearly productivity growth, whereas they were previosly adding less than one tenth of a percentage point.

Any guesses about what I think is going on here?  It seems quite plausible to me that this measured-but-unattributed catchall category is where IT's productivity benefits are now showing up.  Gordon told us that be believes the spike in this category is temporary and related to cost-cutting.  He also said that some other economists believe it's permanent, but don't know what's causing it.

I also believe it's permanent, and I think IT is at least partially underlying it. Information technology is changing work and boosting efficiency in the US in many different ways, and is in aggregate having a large and positive impat on productivity now and into the future.

At the time, Andrew noted that if aggregate productivity gains continued to decline, he might have to reexamine his thesis. This week, he updates his theory and admits that, for we IT bulls, the productivity data looks disheartening:

It Looks like IT Isn't Helping Productivity Anymore...Yeah, But..

...Well, the most recent data have not been kind to us optimists. Annual nonfarm productivity growth (seasonally adjusted) in the first quarter of 2007, was only 1.0%, according to recently revised estimates, which is less than half  the corresponding figure from Q4 2006.  This is quite far below the annual average growth rate of 3.87% the US economy experienced from Q3 2001 to Q2 2004.

So even though many expect productivity growth to pick up somewhat in the second half of the year, the trend is clearly down from its peak.

Does this indicate that the era in which information technology was having a deep impact on the US economy has passed? Evidence in support of this view comes not only from the productivity statistics, but also from the slowdown in IT investment growth rates themselves. Taken together, they tell a straightforward and intuitively appealing story: companies are making rational decisions to stop spending willy-nilly on IT because they realize that IT is doing less for them now than was the case in the past.

A logical conclusion of this story is that absent any radical tech innovations, this gradual cooling will continue. We'll continue to spend less and less on IT if IT does less and less for us...

So is that it? Do we throw in the towel now that IT's biggest academic supporter is doubting the veracity of our bullish stance? NOT SO FAST, Andrew goes on to suggest that while productivity data certainly remains an important measuring stick, it's not the only way to evaluate the importance of IT spend.

Rather than continuing to scrutinize the productivity figures, I'd like to shift topics. Everyone agrees that productivity growth is a critical measure, but it's not the only one managers care about, and it's not the only one that could be influenced by IT. Productivity growth measures whether the economic pie is getting bigger, but it's also important to understand how that pie is being divided up.

Productivity growth, in other words, doesn't tell us anything about competitive balances or competitive dynamics. And it's perfectly possible for IT to have no impact on aggregate productivity at the same time that it's having a substantial impact on competition. To see how, consider a stripped-down industry with only two firms, both of which have 50% market share. One of them invests successfully in IT and uses its new technology-based capabilities to take customers from the other company. After a couple years one firm has 75% market share, the other 25%, but the industry remains the same size during this period because total customer demand doesn't increase. At the industry level, IT has had no impact on productivity in this example (since total output doesn't increase) but it's had a major impact on relative competitive position.

Obviously some are going to accuse Andrew of pulling a bait and switch just when the data starts looking like it works against his thesis. I, on the other hand, think he's starting to zero in on the real-world fact that information technology is such a ubiquitous part of the economic model now that you HAVE to measure its impact through multiple, coincident variables.

I'm looking forward to hashing this out with Andrew over drinks next week at Enterprise 2.0. In the meantime, I would love to hear where you stand on this discussion.

andrew mcafee productivity IT competition enterprise irregulars woodrow

FreeAgent Central launches...

Friend and fellow Irregular Dennis Howlett is a true Renaissance man. I couldn't imagine Dennis doing just one thing at a time, his mind works best when it's thinking about a lot of different ideas simultaneously. His latest passion project involves an intriguing new startup called FreeAgent Central.

From the company FAQ:

FreeAgent is an online money management tool intended for small, UK-based service businesses of 1-3 employees. This will include most kinds of freelancers, contractors and consultants. Whether you are just getting started, or are already in business as a sole trader or limited company, VAT registered or not, FreeAgent can save you time. FreeAgent will probably not be for you if you tend to sell lots of products rather than services, hold materials and stock, or handle cash as part of your business.

FreeAgent Central is going to provide a good litmus test for many of the ideas Dennis and we Enterprise Irregulars espouse:

• Bringing better functional solutions to the long tail -- FA Central is, at least initially, targeting the very smallest of companies (1-3 employees), yet is looking to leverage web services and an internet delivery model to provide a level of functional parity that wasn't available to them previously
• Bootstrapping to viability -- Dennis and his partners are bootstrapping to launch, again something that would've been impossible prior to the days of internet-based services delivery
• Software-as-a-service -- Web-based, subscription-pricing, iterative development release cycles, mobility computing

If I've one reservation in the early going it's the fact that I'm not FreeAgent's target audience, so my utility as a beta user has been limited. But as Charlie says, I think it's great that the FreeAgent team are so focused out of the chute. There's plenty of time to be more things to more people, for now cultivate a loyal set of early adopters and prove out the use case.

If there are any accountants, particularly in the UK, who would like to participate in the beta, please do so with my highest recommendation. All that I ask is you provide honest and detailed feedback to Dennis and his partners; they won't take your efforts for granted.

Best of luck Dennis, Ed, Olly and Roan.

dennis howlett enterprise irregulars freeagent central innovation woodrow