Wednesday, December 19, 2007

IF IBM Does It Will They Come?

 

From ZDNet.com

» IBM demos ‘On Demand Workplace’; Will Web 2.0 deliver productivity gains? | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

Some quotes:

…IBM demoed its enterprise 2.0 experiments Tuesday including its On Demand Workplace–an application that’s part intranet, part Facebook and part Web service that becomes an interface to legacy systems.…

…Big Blue’s challenge: Herding and harnessing 372,000 employees. Hennessey noted that his job as CIO is to simplify, transform and innovate. That’s easier said than done.…

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…Among the notable ODW features demoed:

  • Employees have their own profiles based on content and function. Personalization is also allowed via imported Google Gadgets and RSS feeds. The potential gain: These “Blue Pages” serve as expertise locators so you can find that DB2 administrator when you need one.
  • Portlets are available for business units and employees for customization. Blogging, wikis and employee content encouraged. The potential gain: Knowledge management.
  • Applications are being delivered as Web services via ODW. The payoff here is obvious: Application consolidation. Once legacy apps become Web services you can gradually cut off parts that aren’t necessary.

There are a bevy of questions yet to be answered. Among them:

  • What are IBM’s guidelines on mashups inside the company? Google Gadgets were ok, but Google is a big IBM partner.
  • What are the thoughts on security with this stuff? RSS feeds are nice, but whenever there’s a Net connection and some data swapping there’s a risk.
  • What are the productivity gains Hennessey is hoping to see to move ODW to production? It’s obvious that the goal for IBM is to have its workers collaborate better across the globe. How exactly will that be measured? …

This is all really cool. But I keep wondering about whether people will really use these tools or stick to what's familiar and comfortable. This is a recurring theme of mine based upon my experience at work.

Most of my associates are not users of these kinds of technologies. The forge along using whatever tools they prefer in the way they prefer. This is, to some extent, policy and to another extent necessity. This is because most of our employees are freelancers and we can't dictate the tools they use. The remainder are either uninterested or unable to take advantage of these kinds of technologies or are managed by those with similar or greater disabilities.

So I wonder. Will IBM meet it's goal:

"IBM is hoping to get about 10 percent of its employee base using ODW to garner a statistically relevant mass of feedback."

And more interestingly, will IBM ultimately adopt this or a descendent platform or will the forces of inertia keep the same old inefficient tools in place.

Does IBM and do IBM'ers speak Web?

Who Speaks Web?

From e-Week.com:

Programming for the Web is, of course, an entirely different culture than programming for a single software platform, and Gundotra has taken to the new culture with all the zeal of a convert. "The previous platform I was responsible for evangelizing helped one company. The Web helps all of mankind," he said.

Gundotra demurred when asked if Microsoft just doesn't get Web development. He said some companies are native Web speakers, while others speak Web with a heavy accent.

Exec: Google is a 'Native Web Speaker'

So companies can be native Web speakers. Companies such as Google and Yahoo, but maybe not Microsoft or IBM. How about people? The commercial World Wide Web has been around for almost 15 years, hitting its first peak of popularity in the late 90's. The majority of people in even modestly technologically advanced countries have at least some exposure to it.  The question is who is a native speaker?

It may seem obvious that kids born since about 1985 have been exposed to the Internet all their lives. Does that mean they speak Web?

The folks from the universities who were on the Internet and the Unix geeks who were using ftp, telnet, gopher and the other text based Internet applications since 1969 would seem to speak Internet — after all the language of the Internet is Unix. Are they native speakers?

What about Marc Andreeson, a creator of Mosaic and founder of Netscape and his counterparts? Are they native speakers?

How about people like me? I've been using personal computers for over a quarter century and been on-line almost that long. Of course, back then 300 Baud was fast and CompuServe was "it"! But I was instrumental in one of the first companies to in NYC to host web sites running off of Oracle instead of static web pages — in 1994 — and was selling T1's and networking to early adopters through 1997. I spend most of every day on line, whether reading the morning news with breakfast, researching, blogging and communicating at work and checking the bio's of TV show and movie cast members on IMDB and Google in the evening. Does that make me a native speaker?

Oh, and what does my compulsion to link to definitions of network protocols say about my attitude?

How about my Father-in-Law? He's 92. We gave him a computer about 8 years ago. He has a dial-up account. He has shortcuts to the web sites he visits strewn across his desktop: he never figured out bookmarks (favorites in IE speak). Is he a native speaker?

How about you? What's your story? Who is a native speaker?

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Are Faster Chips Leaving Programmers in the Dust? Or Do The Just Lack Imagination?

From the article:

In the future, Mr. Mundie said, parallel software will take on tasks that make the computer increasingly act as an intelligent personal assistant.

“My machine overnight could process my in-box, analyze which ones were probably the most important, but it could go a step further,” he said. “It could interpret some of them, it could look at whether I’ve ever corresponded with these people, it could determine the semantic context, it could draft three possible replies. And when I came in in the morning, it would say, hey, I looked at these messages, these are the ones you probably care about, you probably want to do this for these guys, and just click yes and I’ll finish the appointment.”


Faster Chips Are Leaving Programmers in Their Dust - New York Times

So, Mr. Mundie, a Microsoft CTO, thinks that people will utilize the power these new processor designs might offer to do such things as automate e-mail processing - a fairly mundane task that's currently somewhat taken care of by the better e-mail clients, including Microsoft Outlo0k. I don't want to disappoint Craig, but I have my doubts about this one. Not that the processor technologies will enable new personal computing paradigms, just that people will take advantage of the automation.

I see too many people who barely take advantage of the capabilities their software offers them now. Just sticking with Outlook and with a very unscientific sampling method: walking around my office and talking to friends it's easy to see that most people don't use the features such as "Rules", Category Tagging, Folders, Flagging, Voting Buttons, Delayed Delivery, or Direct Replies to. The only feature you see regularly used is Signatures and Stationary and perhaps some use of color.

Does Craig seriously think people will bother to learn how to get their software to filter their mail according to rules they've set up (themselves), and act upon these rules? No matter how simple? How transparent? Maybe a geek like me would - after all, I know about the features. Most people aren't even aware of them.

So yes, the faster processors that may be coming cold have an affect on digital device use and the personal computing paradigm. But it won't be in these areas.

In fact, if history is any guide, we're not really going to be able to imagine how these new processors will be used. If all that Microsoft can think of is e-mail automation, I would not be surprised to find them falling behind some upstart with a better idea.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Should the staff at a Technology Company be able to use Technologies?

I keep wondering whether the people who work at technology companies need to be good users of technology in general, let alone whether they should be users of their own technologies. The latter is harder to determine as not all technology company products are usable by a broad audience. After all, how many people need to know how to configure a provisioning platform?

But shouldn't folks working at tech companies be really comfortable using personal computers, and PC software? Should people who communicate be at least advanced users of communications software? (Meaning in this case Word and Outlook and their cousins.)

For the twenty years I've been in this business, I've seen that for most companies, user training is an after-thought except when something brand new is installed. Once the system is up and running for a while, even training of new employees falls by the wayside.

If employees don't know how to really use the software they use every day, who suffers? Them? Well, they could be wasting time trying to do manually that which the computer would do automatically. (A friend calls this electronic pencil pushing.) Corporate security could be compromised, even if users are supposedly trained on "correct usage" where security is concerned, there are so many ways around the systems, that it's not improbable that best practices will not be used.

The converse of this is in applications designed by and for end-users without consultation with IT on best practices, security, integration with other programs and so forth. Current corporate governance standards are supposed to prevent this, but we all know that users will go around the strictest guidelines, especially if they have their own power centers or simply feel entitled.

Major technology companies, especially software ones, do use their products as much as possible. But if my experience is common, many employees, even at senior technical levels, don't take advantage of what's made available to them. It could at best be said they are using PC's with the same level of capability that they exhibited when the personal computer was new.

I used to think this was because it was hard to use the more advanced features, software offers, but I'm coming to the realization that for most people, the features don't matter. They don't care if they spend extra time doing something manually that could be done automatically. They don't want to be bothered with learning how.

And they'll learn convoluted complex procedures to get around the automation if they're unwilling to learn the simpler automation because they're afraid.

So who cares? The companies keep making new versions with more and better features that are used by fewer and fewer people. The decision makers don't care since they're often the least likely to be capable users themselves. Or if they care, they're the ones who instigated the convoluted, non-inter-operable mess in the first place.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Is it Productivity or Indenture?

I'm sorry, but I have problems with the cult of "work all the time". Here's a quote that sums up the attitude so many people have today.

"Mobility has become ubiquitous," says Kevin Roberts, product manager with Toshiba's Digital Products division. "Businesses have come to expect the added productivity that comes from keeping workers mobile. Toshiba wants me to have a notebook because I can take it home with me and still be productive there, and we don't have to stop e-mailing just because it's after hours."

Source: 8 New Notebooks For Road Warriors - Hardware - IT Channel News by CRN and VARBusiness

I may be old fashioned, but this doesn't seem more productive. It seems like labor being exploited by management. I know, Mr. Roberts is a manager and isn't expected to function like a mere worker, but I think it's gone way too far.

I don't see a problem working on things after you've left the office if the project requires it. I don't even see a problem staying late for the same reasons. And many different factors make working at home attractive including lowering emissions due to less driving to work, more time at home with the family and so on. But I find the concept that working extra hours is more productive to be contrary to the meaning of improved productivity. Productivity usually means:

A measure relating a quantity or quality of output to the inputs required to produce it.

Often means labor productivity, which is can be measured by quantity of output per time spent or numbers employed. Could be measured in, for example, U.S. dollars per hour.

This is pretty straightforward: An improvement in productivity over time is more work (work product?) being produced over a period of time when compared to a previous similar period. It means that more "widgets" were produced with the same number of workers over the same number of hours when compared to an earlier period. More productivity doesn't mean producing more widgets by the same number of people over a longer period of time (even if you don't pay those people extra for the extra time). While it can mean producing the same output with fewer people, in practice those fewer people are spending more time to complete the output.

This isn't an increase in productivity. It's simply worker exploitation.

It's exploitation, even if the worker is complicit in that exploitation. In fact, it's a worse form of exploitation when the worker is complicit, as he or she :

  1. Feels or is in fact threatened with unemployment if the extra work isn't performed.
  2. Believe their relationship with the company is less executive/worker and more executive/associate. They believe that the company is looking out for their interests.
  3. Ignorant of the history of exploitation that was ameliorated by the success of organized labor: the 40-hour week, pensions, health coverage and job safety rules.
  4. Believes that stock options exempt them from exploitation - or at least makes them an owner and thus un-exploitable.

These delusions are commonplace among the workers in the "New Economy" created in the 1990's and continue today as the lessons taught were not learned.

Not only have people not learned the lessons, I think today's worker, especially today's younger college educated worker, thinks this exploitation is normal. They even think it's desirable.

I think it's a shared delusion that one is not a serf if the noble doesn't crap on you directly and calls you by your first name.

Holly Moly, what's with MOLI?

There's a new provider in the cloud and they're MOLI:

Finally there's a way to create and maintain a website for your business without the headaches and expense! MOLI makes it easy for you to put your business online in minutes.Business Offer :: members only :: MOLI ::

The deal is for a free, small site business site, with some interesting features. This is an online community, in the Facebook/My Space vein, but instead of a profile page with links to news and so forth, you use the profiles to create web sites that can be have various degrees of access and can be used for small businesses. What's interesting is that these sites appear on a community portal to which has public and membership access controls. This is on top of private, more secure profiles. The important point is that these businesses exist within a Web 2.0 environment where collaboration, social networking and so forth are expected.

While I'm sure MOLI is not completely unique, it's the first social site I've seen that's intended to foster commerce within the online community. Setting up a store is all but painless - you do have to have a credit card and an account at PayPal or Google Checkout, though you can set one up while creating your store. (While MOLI is free, having a store costs $3.99 a month. (PayPal or Google Checkout fees are not included. I'm sure there are other MOLI-fees, I've not looked that closely.) Then create your site using the fairly good online tools and you have a store. Since you're within a community environment, you have a ready made environment to market your store. The financial message is pretty good too: typical fees from Google or PayPal will be 1 to 1.5%, though Google is free until the end of the year, so, keeping the math simple, the $3.99 fee at 1% of sales means four hundred dollars in sales, plus another four to six dollars and your cost of sales for $400 in goods is only $10. Of course you do have to have the goods and get them to your customers, but you can charge for shipping and handling, so that's still a good deal. One thing you apparently can't do is sell digital content for direct download. You'll have to make some other arrangements for that business model. Storage capacity and intellectual property issues are probably affecting these features for now.

So why is Edison interested in a social community site? It's not in our usual coverage areas -we're interested in enterprise computing after all. I think MOLI is the start of a whole new way of on-line selling. It's an extension of what Amazon does with all it's vendors, but here you have your own shop at the mall. The hot graphics, stylish interface, ability to present video and other content types, the social networking and other Web 2.0 contexts all are coming together to change how people shop and sell.

I expect to see more and more MOLI like features on the regular shopping sites over the next year. MOLI is just the first I've seen.

Revolution in the Office?

 

From MessageLabs:

FEATURE EDITORIAL

Revolution in the Office

There is a revolution happening in the world of office productivity tools, and Microsoft isn't leading it. Microsoft Office is looking long in the tooth and could be toppled. The revolution is this: the design basis of office productivity tools has shifted.

All versions of what we traditionally called Office--the desktop suite of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access--were built with the individual user in mind. Although the software is often purchased for everyone in the firm, it is the individual end-user who is enabled to work better. They can type up their thoughts and revise them easier than using a typewriter. They can build financial models or other numerical calculations, and try out different scenarios with minimal cost. They can easily build decks of slides to use in a meeting. They can create databases to track things. But with the design basis being the individual, collaboration is a secondary thought, a bolt-on to the core. You had to use email for that: Create email. Attach document or spreadsheet. Send. User first, sharing second.

The revolutionaries are starting from the opposite direction: collaboration is core to the design concept, not a secondary bolt-on. Google Docs and Zoho Writer allow you to draft thoughts in a word processing document, and to then invite other people to view and edit the document, with no emailing around of the document. There is just one edition that everyone shares. Same for spreadsheets with EditGrid or Google Spreadsheets: rather than being a digital artifact designed for one, it is collaborative from the start. Others are invited to partake of a numerical feast without having to endure spreadsheet indigestion afterward as multiple versions have to be kept in synchronization. The database functions in CentralDesktop, Zoho DB, DabbleDB, among others, to make the database collaborative, with full multi-user capabilities from day one.

One of the big differences between the two design bases has been the offline capabilities in desktop offerings. You did not need an Internet connection to work with your documents, spreadsheets, presentations or databases. They were installed locally, and as long as you had your computer with you, you had full recourse to your work and files. The revolutionaries, given their leveraging of the Internet as a services platform and the browser as the universal client, were not able to match this. But that difference is being eroded slowly, with offline capabilities being added by the revolutionaries.

So the choice of tools for office productivity going forward has become more complex. Do you continue with what you know (Microsoft Office) and buy a set of servers and add-ons to make collaboration more natural, or do you attack a different way and embrace one of the new generation of tools that includes collaboration capabilities as an integral part of the value proposition? The latter is becoming more attractive each month.

Michael Sampson

But what if no one wants to collaborate? What if teams would rather manage their work in e-mail, regardless of the business, operational, quality and project control, technological and other issues that have proven that a collaboration platform as outlined above is the way to go?

Should an organization force its employees to use the collaboration tools available, and force that use within parameters appropriate for the management of the content being created?

Or is it perfectly OK for content (created for the company, whether for internal use, sales and sales support or for delivery to customers) to reside on PC's and laptops without backup, tracking or search-ability?

Is it alright that staff refuse to learn how to use the tools made available to them? Is it OK that tools be crippled in their delivery to fit the limited perceptions of the least capable of users? (In other words, if a product has a great range of capabilities, should it's delivered interface be limited to those capabilities of the least skilled or interested users?)

Is it alright that companies not innovate their practices because power centers refuse to change their habits? Is it OK that things that are simple and quick to implement are delayed or only partially implemented so that those folks unwilling or incapable of dealing with them are not inconvenienced, even if it makes it more difficult for others to do their jobs?

Just asking.