BizTechTalk

Crowdcasting and Idea Competitions

Crowdcasting, crowdsourcing, open innovation... what are these terms? Why is WIRED talking about this? Why do companies like RedHat, Whirlpool, and others use this set of techniques as part of their innovation toolkit?

Can YOUR organization benefit from these approaches to exploding both the quantity and quality of innovation applied to your product or service development needs? Let's find out!

Fascinating conversation, by your host, Dan Keldsen, Director of Market Intelligence at AIIM.org, beginning with the story of how Anil Rathi, now CEO of IdeaCrossing, began his innovation pitches by cold-calling companies at the age of 13, producing working models (in some cases) of his inventions/ideas, eventually leading him into the world (post-MBA) of running innovation challenges professionally for some of the biggest and most innovative (arguably) brands on the planet!

Learn the Three Ps (Preparation, Promotion, Participation - the Divergent Thinking Process) and Three Es - (Evaluation, Extraction, Exploration - the Convergent Thinking Process) that IdeaCrossing uses in preparing both their clients and the Innovation Challenge participants. Understand the importance of framing questions to kickstart group brainstorming (echoing the huge number of resources I've been culling on psychology, linguistics, marketing, and more) into the highest gears possible, and much more!

One brief note - we had a telephone malfunction around the 8 minute mark, with a slight change in Anil's voice as a result (different phone), but it passes very quickly, and should be forgotten moments after your hear it.

Do you have experience in any of these innovation techniques? Any feedback on your experience, as a client or participant?

Any thoughts, if you haven't been involved in such a process, as to it's effectiveness for your own innovation challenges?

Please weigh in, I would love to hear your thoughts on these and other topcis around innovatiton management. In the meantime, take a listen, and enjoy!


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Everything IS Miscellaneous, But with plenty of connections...

On the search and find front, relating to my other post today regarding Search 2.0, Google and Vivismo, I recalled the video interview that David Weinberger had done with me at the January 2007 user conference run by FAST - FASTForward 2007, and as with so much content posted to the web, raise it from the dead (i.e. the "long tail") for another re-examine.

Important sidenote: FAST had some disappointing news in the last few days on the revenue and expense side. Ouch. Fast Quick, get a financial doctor! See our aiimALERT for more commentary on the FAST Financial Front. Smart people, intriguing technology - but don't forget to run the business...

The video interview reminds me again that search and findability, discovery and navigation is much more than any single feature, function, or piece of technology. It also reminds me that David is smart as a whip (truly), and although we try to trip each other up with sarcastic humor (and it is certainly hard to top him - as he has far more experience in "the media" than I), there are worse things to do with 5 minutes of your life! You might laugh, you might learn - worth a shot!

Also, although the video clip and description mentions my working at the Delphi Group and/or the Innovation Lab of Perot Systems (we [Delphi] had been acquired by Perot Systems 3.5 years ago), as of June 1, 2007, you can find me hanging my hat at AIIM.org - still very much engaged in research, analysis and consulting in the broad world of information and innovation. If there's anything I can do for you, as a software company, reporter, blogger, or a buyer/user, don't hesitate to get in touch!

Who puts the "Enterprise" in Enterprise Search?

Search technology has been around for a long time, and the "core" of search is remarkably the same across the suppliers of these solutions. Some people might think that not much innovation has happened  in the search world, except for that bastion of innovation, Google.

For better or worse, Google has become synonymous with search, particularly web-based search, which has greatly increased the perception of the value of search. As to whether it has truly increased FIND, that is a bit debatable, but at least raising the awareness of users to even THINK about using search has done great things for any in the information management world.

For readers of this blog, or others who have been involved in any of the education or consulting I've done in search, taxonomy, information architecture, etc. - I will praise Google for many things, and use them all day long in various guises, but...

In the hundreds of companies I've dealt with who have needed enterprise search, I can count on one hand the number of companies who should think Google as THE only answer for their Enterprise Search solution.

I can count on multiple hands the number of companies I have personally dealt with, who have bought the Google appliances and then thrown them out (not due to my prodding either - came to that decision on their own), quickly or after a year or so. Hey, Google is the new (old) Verity! (the OEM edition of Verity was fairly low capability and inevitably fell behind in any ECM installation, as other components were upgraded, but the core OEM search piece stayed in place)

Google will get there eventually, but for now, Enterprise Search isn't even getting 1% of the attention of money, time, or effort of Google at large (clearly not a scientific measurement, but you get my point) - or it would be a far more useful and disruptive solution in this space.

So, why am I bringing this up today?

This week, I happened to stumble onto a nice blog, discussing some great and important aspects of enterprise search - the blog is entitled Search 2.0. I don't know the author (yet), but he makes some great points in his postings. An entry that I got caught up on was the "Search 2.0: Enterprise Search Done Right" entry, which by it's name clearly indicated Vivisimo would be discussed (that's a tagline of theirs), and there is a nice romp through some of their strengths and weaknesses.

I would've moved on, but caught an anonymous commenter at the end of the post who made two statements that just tweaked my brain and got my type-typing away. Head on over, and take a look... I would love your feedback on the entry itself, or any of the commentary.

(The Quick summary: Three sure ways to push my buttons are to: discuss usability, and not back up statements about usability studies; claim that any one vendor is a sure solution to your ills; or claim that ALL users want to find content in only ONE way [the commenter discusses dynamic clustering as a known usability issue, and a "true" enterprise search solution like Google is the way to go] - bottom line, search is a system, involving many moving parts, and it's not as easy as it looks to do this well in the enterprise)

What's your take? Feel free to comment on the Search 2.0 blog if you like, or here - I'm not trying to siphon traffic, but just make sure that the reality of concerns behind the scenes in Enterprise Search are being heard, discussed, and understood.

BTW - stay tuned for our (AIIM) upcoming talk radio show, where no doubt we will be discussing topics just like this, and I certainly want to hear from you live when we roll the show out and on the air.

Thinking! The Best Practice

What do such creative geniuses as Walt Disney, Salvador Dali, Albert Einstein, and other famous minds have in common?

They were once mere mortals, just like you and I!

And if armed with the appropriate tools, you can create and evaluate hundreds more ideas than you currently do, perhaps at the level, quality, stubborn attitude of the creative minds of the world, and crack through the creativity barrier that may be preventing you from performing at genius innovator levels...

Or at least that is what this interview with Michael Michalko of the famous ThinkerToys (available in a new 2nd edition as of 2006) and Cracking Creativity books, and creator of the ThinkPak card deck, should give you some insight into.

The mind is a tricky beast - but tame it, retrain it, and you may be astonished at what you can accomplish! Fantastic, fun interview, Michael simply LIVES in a creative mode and is a wonderful teacher. I was lucky enough to pry him away from some vacation time to do this interview, and I believe the research, stories and anecdotes that he provides will be of true value to you if you are interested in improving your own creative problem solving abilities.

As always, would love to hear your thoughts on this conversation, your experiences and use of any of Michael's books and assembled techniques, and what has or has not worked for you.

Listen! Think! Do! Question the rules and break the habits that are impeding your problem solving, idea generating skills!

Interview conducted by Dan Keldsen, Director of Market Intelligence at AIIM.

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Q up your Distractions

Distractions abound in the daily life of a knowledge worker, and I suspect we're all in the same boat on this. If you have listened to or read previous interviews that I have done on the topics of MindMapping or Getting Things Done (GTD), I believe that both of these techniques have applicability to both individuals and in team settings.

In this interview, I speak with Nick Duffill from Gyronix (www.gyronix.com), about MindMapping, his extension of functionality to MindJet's MindManager product (listen to my previous podcast on GTD and MindManager) in the form of the product GyroQ, which I have tested out myself as well.

Distractions don't stop - the task is how to keep them from overwhelming you as you strive to juggle the work that needs to get done, the ideas (strategic or otherwise) that pop up while you're busy "doing real work" (tactically), and make sure that you have a systematic way to capture and then knock off the thoughts and work that surround you. I believe in this interview, Nick and I pluck some useful fruit, and I encourage all listeners (on PCs only sadly) grab a trial copy of GyroQ and MindManager, and have a go at using these techniques in your work.

If you are using these tools and techniques yourself, or have alternative methods, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to comment here, and let's mutually raise the bar here! There is much to learn, and neither Nick nor I know it all.

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aiimALERT: SchemaLogic expands into targeted Media and Publishing Solutions

Last week, SchemaLogic  announced the release of its Business Semantics Management software specifically designed for media and publishing enterprises. SchemaLogic customers in this market include the Associated Press (AP), Corbis, Reed Business International, and the International Press and Telecommunication Council (IPTC) among others (see press release).

SchemaLogic has been providing collaboratively-oriented solutions to building controlled vocabularies for a wide variety of solutions, cutting across many different vertical industries, for several years now. This  honing of the solution for the media and publishing industry is a sign of market maturity, such that SchemaLogic can dedicate themselves a bit to a targeted solution like this, rather than pursuing a purely horizontal offering. I can safely say this is definitely a turning point, if not a tipping point, moment. Out of the chasm? Perhaps not - but heading out of the innovators and into the early adopters at the least, and certainly getting close to a chasm jump.

But overall - what does this mean beyond the world of Publishing?

This is another case where internally-facing ECM deployments need to look to the commercial arena for inspiration and action. If information is truly a business asset, then making connections between the user’s intent and the end result, whether that user is an employee or a buyer/consumer, ultimately results in large chunks of revenue/time/cost that just simply cannot happen without serious attention being paid to Information Organization and Access (IOA).

To *not* make the effort to seek out opportunities for "soft-dollar" benefits (faster find translating to higher sales, faster inventory turnover, more rapid product development, etc.) is just short of irresponsibility on the part of an enterprise. Mismanagement of information should factor nearly as important as mismanagement of funds, but does not... yet.

Billionaires, Tripping Points, Tipping Points and Yoda!

An interview of Mark Thompson, one of the authors of "Success Built to Last," the sequel to the best-selling "Built to Last," by your host of BizTechTalk, Dan Keldsen.

Success Built to Last examines in depth, and over the course of 10 years of largely interview-based research, what creates "enduring success" - success by an individual over at least 20 years, and in many cases, longer. Really interesting book, and I was lucky enough to meet Mark through a previous interviewee, Jack Jia, CEO of Baynote (see/hear that podcast on "Powering the Long Tail with Invisible Crowds" - another great interview, and if you don't understand search and navigation in a modern sense, or what the "Wisdom of Crowds" or "The Long Tail" are all about - this is both a great introduction, and a fairly deep yet targeted dive).

Do you have to be dyslexic to be a billionaire (as Richard Branson is for example)? Should you not focus on creating or identifying Tipping Points, and instead watch out for Tripping Points that may cause temporary pain, but actually point out some serious potential solutions to focus on?

This interview was a lot of fun, and full of great ideas on how to be personally innovative (a topic I continue to plow deeper into), how to not just have ideas but to actually execute on them (a KEY to innovation), how to fully engage in your work, and of course some re-interpreted wisdom from Yoda.

Do, or do not? You decide! Listen in, and we would love to hear your insights into Success Built to Last - what your thoughts on the book or this interview are, and get a dialog going on. Join the conversation!


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aiimALERT: Xythos Expands Secure On-Demand DM

Xythos, through it's Xythos on Demand (or XoD) offerings, has recently expanded it's capabilities with XoD v1.6, adding UI improvements borrowing from Web 2.0 user experience (AJAX), as well as expanded functionality in the form of Wikis and RSS feeds (news via KMWorld).

Xythos has long had an interesting solution, although when I'd first met with them, perhaps 5-7 years ago, they were clearly ahead of their time. They were providing WebDAV-based solutions, at a time when almost nobody knew what WebDAV was (do they now?) and it was jokingly called "WebDA" (as there was no versioning capability in the spec at the time).

Time passes, and Xythos has been continuing to expand on basic content services, through their introduction late last year of an "on demand" offshoot, XoD (aka Xythos on Demand), and now continues to expand in a Web 2.0 and agile development method to rapidly iterate on new functionality. It's good to see Xythos continue to tackle the "invisible" aspects of their offering (and I mean this positively) - providing content security without intrusiveness, of course to be completely invisible is a death knell for any application provider (a classic issue for OEM deals), and with this extension of the UI and functionality, they make their visible aspects of interacting with the solution up a notch or two, which should make end-users happier and more likely to use these services in addition to the automatic and invisible work that Xythos can provide in stripping and centralizing files being sent as email attachments.

The AIIM Market Intelligence unit is in the midst of launching research around Content Security, and will be expanding on capabilities such as this, as well as the business needs across verticals, that drive investing in these solutions. It's not just about creation, but appropriate controls, getting systems/tools out of the way, and making security a default and enabler, rather than annoyance throughout the lifecycle.

As stated in other aiimALERTS here on BizTechTalk (such as Google Acquires Postini - Do No Evil?) and TakingAIIM (such as Alfresco Announces Availability of Community Edition 2.1), the intersection of the consumer facing Web 2.0 movement is clearly and rapidly making an impact on the Enterprise, forming Enterprise 2.0. More on that trend, on a continuing basis (including in depth research).

aiimALERT: Google Acquires Postini - Do No Evil?

Google recently announced  that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Postini, a provider of on-demand communications security and compliance solutions. Postini's services can be used to protect a company's email, instant messaging, and other web-based communications. Under the terms of the agreement, Google will acquire Postini for $625 million in cash. (press release)

On the surface, this acquisition seemed a bit bizarre. Why does Google need to get into the spam-filtering game? (This is Postini's primary capability - regardless of what's advertised) After all, Gmail and the "business version" in Google Apps has spam-filtering already, and MSN/Hotmail do as well.

However, as pointed out by Bill Burnham (a Venture Capitalist) writing over at AlwaysOn, this is a shot at Microsoft (primarily) and specifically Exchange. As Bill mentions again, this is not good news for other hosted spam/message-filtering companies - but Bill doesn't mention that Microsoft itself is already in THAT game as well. I've spent about 7 years covering messaging and far too much of that time covering spam-filtering solutions. In 2005 (announced in July, completed in August), Microsoft acquired FrontBridge, a similar player to Postini. Cutting to the chase, Google is firing multiple shots over at Microsoft, targeting both the recurring revenue stream (subscription) of the FrontBridge acquisition (will Google provide Postini spam-filtering for free?), and at the Exchange software model via Google Apps itself combined with the added functionality of Postini and it's broad offerings (beyond spam filtering, email encryption, etc.). Combine this with news covered in our aiimALERT on AOL today, and there is more fuel on the fire regarding the world of Web 2.0, hosted/on-demand services, and exactly who and how the bills are being paid for services (Google of course making most of it's money via advertising - for the moment).

Is Google setting up to become the overall on-demand provider across the board? Look out Salesforce.com et al, there's a distributed platform player in the market - and it's hungry for an on-demand world.

Plain English or Total Greek? Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0 - what IS all this stuff?

Having previously worked with a few greeks for the last 13 years (up until 2 months ago), I always wonder whether I should mention the phrase "it's all Greek to me" - but I will here...

Not because Enterprise 2.0 and related bits are greek to me (and sadly, I still know essentially no Greek in all this time - or at least not "polite company" greek), but because technology in general, and components of Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 specifically, are terribly misunderstood if they are even known in the slightest.

In many cases, "average business people" (one sample is kept in Geneva, or so I hear), have absolutely no idea what defines these worlds, let alone what an "Enterprise 2.0" world would look like TO THEM and their BUSINESS. Not as pure ideas, or saviors of us all, but "rubber hits the road" actual systems that let people accomplish things, hopefully, useful things.

How to change this?

For the time I've spent in the software industry, much of the time, my job is almost always, one way or another to convert heavy technical talk into "business-speak" and vice versa. Translating between managers and workers - suppliers and buyers - usability specialists and database designers - etc..

I'll be honest - my entry point into this world was from an IT background, and if it wasn't geek, it wasn't me. Eventually it dawned on me that I should start understanding what our analysts, consultants, and BUSINESS people were talking about and help to translate that into the solutions that we ourselves (this was at Delphi Group) were deploying inside. Bad things happen when business and IT collide - sadly, this happens frequently. Painful business all around. Not good!

Coming to a handful of points here... Ready?

Point one - talk the talk:

Take the time to "learn the lingo" - those who do, have a much happier career path ahead of them. Those who don't, well, are the first to get their jobs outsourced. If you can't make sense of the technobabble or business-speak in the world, find someone who can, and have THEM get you up to speed. Use books, blogs, seminars, consulting, whatever it takes, but you need to be continuously learning or you will be irrelevant to the world, soon enough.

Point two - don't let INVENTION get in the way:

Thankfully I've seen and done enough over the years to realize something fairly important - to me if not to just about everyone...

I (personally) do not have to INVENT all of my material from scratch. INNOVATION isn't (always) spontaneous creation out of nothingness (a high bar I call "BIG I" Innovation).

"Standing on the shoulders of giants" isn't just a neat catchphrase - it's something to very seriously consider. As a "creative person" - I must admit that irritates me sometimes, but as a "do-er" - hey, there is only so much time my life, and not every situation warrants creating from scratch.

Incidentally, on this point and the point below, look at my colleague Carl Frappaolo's recent post on "The Feminine Side of Knowledge Management."

Point three - acknowledge you aren't the only source in the world:

I've been an "industry analyst" and consultant for a while now. I love talking to press and explaining with great gusto how smart I am and how nobody else can provide the insight can. And hey - given that they're on deadline and *I* happen to be the guy that could answer them in time - voila! I am! Same when doing training, research, or any other work - it's awfully tempting to put on a "God Hat" and ignore everything else out there...

But then again, there are plenty of people out there, as smart or smarter, and if I was really the only person with some particular insight, then well, we're probably all in trouble! The world is bigger than me... or you... or your company... or your home page. Acknowledge that. Leverage it! Maybe you don't believe in the Wisdom of Crowds concept. Perhaps the Academic world is the only pure place in the world. Or only open source makes sense...

Point being - seriously - you are the company you keep, and a marketspace of ONE, whether you as an individual, or you as a company, isn't all that interesting. Keep the bigger, broader world in mind, and trying to pretend that nothing else matters isn't doing the world justice. It's just not the way things (really) work. This is EXTREMELY important in the Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 mindset. More on that as time rolls along...

Back to Greek vs English

With that overall buildup (did you feel it?)- let me point to a few resources I heartily recommend if we are to keep getting "Enterprise 2.0" off the ground:

First - I stumbled onto "Bokardo" - a fascinating company and blog about Social Design (and Social Media, etc.). Check it out.

B - My initial stumble lead from Bokardo to "Common Craft" the originator of two great (in content and in fun) videos on RSS and Wikis (embedded below, but also found [with other videos] at "the commoncraft show" as well).

and III - no, there's no three for now. Just checking to see who's paying attention!

So, videos next - then scroll past those and continue reading...

RSS in Plain English

Click To Play

Wikis in Plain English

Click To Play

There you go - quick, painless, might even have stuck in your head. Guaranteed that at least some readers here will now shoot this around to colleagues, maybe even friends and family, to help explain these things.

As I've said before on this blog and elsewhere - there's a lot happening out there in the big wide world (not just the world wide WEB), and there is much to cover. My goal is to keep expanding my resources, networks, and discussions, and I invite you to do the same.

In our Market Intelligence unit at AIIM, we are brewing up some research on Enterprise 2.0, so would love to hear from anyone who has tried and died, or tried and begun to succeed in using RSS, Wikis, mashups, "traditional" content management, portals, and the big ol' universe of orbiting concepts in this space.

Help me help you in pulling out the information that will help all of us get to some solid footing this wave of thinking keeps gathering momentum. What questions do you have? What have you experienced? Think it's hogwash? Revolution? Madness? Join the discussion - there's a lot of work to do here!