While technology plays a critical role in terms of how organizations collaborate today, technology is, in general, an enabler of the interpersonal interactions that comprise collaboration. Economics, corporate culture (behavior), and internal politics (leadership) also significantly impact the efficacy of such implementations. Most news events in the e-collaboration and KM spaces focus on products and services rather than the more complex human issues associated with these tools. We believe that a true ROI for collaborative technologies requires a holistic or systemic approach and need to examine three areas: people, process and technology. In general most of the news and events covered in Inside Collaboration are about technology. However, we try to balance this out with editorial from one of our analysts or an invited industry expert that often focuses on the other two critical aspects of collaboration. The news and analysis that follows has been alphabetically grouped according to the taxonomy shown above. CS has a program for ongoing industry and customer research and has produced reports on several of the functional technology markets identified here. Reports that are currently available include:
Options For Sponsorship:
CS analysts are always getting briefed on new collaborative products, releases and services. In addition we are working on the TAXONOMY PROJCT to map the collaborative space (over 1000 vendors). Once in a while, we see some new or emerging technology that we think is exceptional, either in concept or implementation. We decided to start a list of these vendors and products, and in this the May Issue of Inside Collaboration, lists the charter members for the TTW list. If you believe your company or software should be on our TTW list, please contact me directly to set up a briefing with one or more of our analysts at (davidc@collaborate.com).
Why PRM, or CRM for Collaborative Sales, is an important strategy and technology solution for today's dramatically changed business ecosystem (Webinar)- Tuesday, August 12; 12:00 p. m. EDT See: http://www.channelwave.com/seminar/ KM Cluster Silicon Valley September 19, 2003 (San Francisco):
"Next Practices: KM and Organizational Learning" - Innovation Convergence 2003: Smart Thinking in Challenging Times - Minneapolis,MN - Sept 21-23 2003: See: http://www.iirusa.com/convergence/ September 23-25, XML World 2002, New Orleans This event unites business managers, implementers, customers, developers and vendors from across the globe to explore the XML in Business phenomenon. For more information see: http://www.xmlworld.org Communities of Practice, September 23-25, Boston The Institute for International Research's (IIR) upcoming conference on communities of practice examines communities as a Strategic Organizational Resource. This conference will be a forum for understanding how to Find, Create, Support, Maintain & Derive business value from communities of practice. You can register and find more information online at www.iirusa.com/cop Web Search University, Meridian Project Systems User Conference October 1-3 Las Vegas,
NV. KM World and Intranets 2003: October 14-16, 2003, Santa Clara,
California E-Learning 2003: Linking Learning and Human Performance, October
16-17 Collaboration 2003, Lowes Annapolis Hotel, October 20-21, 2003 (David Coleman to do a keynote at this conference) See: http://www.collaboration2003.com/ OPEN TEXT ANNOUNCES LIVELINKUP ORLANDO, NOVEMBER
3-6 Program Highlights Regulatory
Compliance and Corporate Governance Solutions. See: KMWorld & Intranets 2002 , October 29-31, 2002 • Santa Clara Convention Center • Santa Clara, CaliforniaThe combined event will feature seven conference tracks over three days and a single exposition with more than 100 exhibits. This global conference and exposition is designed for developing and evaluating enterprise-wide KM strategies and for implementing collaborative intranet & portal strategies and technologies that meet organizational goals. For more information see: http://www.infotoday.com/kmw02/default.htm Project World 2002, December 10-13 Santa Clara Convention Returning for its 10th year of teaching practical skills to area Project Managers, ProjectWorld Santa Clara will feature 10 in-depth one and two day pre-conference workshops, 3 exciting keynotes, 26 conference sessions, networking opportunities and much more! For more information see: http://www.projectworld.com/live/20/events/20SCL02 2004 International Symposium on Collaborative Technologies and Systems (CTS04) January 18-23, 2004 in San Diego, California, USA. (David Coleman will be doing a keynote and tutorial at this conference). See http://www.engr.udayton.edu/faculty/wsmari/cts04
Industry Coalition Sponsors New Online B.S. Degree in Telecommunications
New Avistar Patents Shorten Design Cycles for Video Hardware
Manufacturers, And Reveals Lower Revenues for Q2 2003 BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM Selects BackWeb For Offline Portal Access
MCI Unveils Industry's First Managed Enterprise Content Delivery
Service Bantu and YellowBrix Partner to Deliver Enterprise Instant Messaging
to Docent Teams Up with Ninth House and AmeriCredit to Present
E-Learning IBM Upgrades WebSphere Software for Better Collaboration
and Buys Content Management Firm (Aptrix) FDA Standardizes on Documentum for Creation, Management,
Delivery and Archival Of All Content Types Ezenia! Inc. Announces A SIBR Phase I Contract Awarded
Sloan FoundationLaunches NY Area Online Learning Center
at Stevens Institute of Technology Latitude MeetingPlace Selected By BancTec Microsoft Renames Placeware Products and Releases Windows
XP Update and SDK For P2P Networking ACT Teleconferencing Launches Additional Web Conferencing
Products for Oralce and Sun Partner to Drive RTC Costs Down Raindance and ViewCentral Form Strategic Alliance and
Raindance Q2 Financials Look Better Groove Networks Bundles Project Apps With Its Peer-to-Peer
Workspace AskMe Acquires CompanyWay Credit Union Unit of CGI Group Inc. (CGI) Goes Live on
Niku 6 Sonexis Expands Sales Channels for Audio and Web ConferencingSee: www.sonexis.com University of Massachusetts Medical School Selects PlanView
Software iManage Q2 Results Show Continued Growth Webex Beats Q2 Earnings Estimates Autonomy Buys Video Software Rival
PeopleSoft has integrated AOL's Enterprise AIM® Services with
its industry-leading enterprise applications. By integrating PeopleSoft's
products and technology platform with the AOL® Instant Messenger
TM (AIM®) service, users will benefit from enhanced real-time
collaboration in communicating with their customers, suppliers and
partners. Instant messaging unites all participants in a business
process, enabling users to be more productive and make faster decisions.
The ability to exchange instant messages from within
PeopleSoft enterprise applications and portal frameworks significantly
improves business efficiency. By leveraging Enterprise AIM Services,
IT managers have reliable logging, auditing and reporting capabilities.
Enterprise AIM Services, AOL's first business-class instant message
offering, provides companies with a greater level of control of
AIM within the enterprise by controlling access, routing and permission.
Enterprise AIM Services is supported by the world's largest instant
messaging network from America Online, which delivers more than
a billion instant messages a day. CS has seen this trend, where ERP (and in this case CRM) applications vendors suddenly understand the value of RTC and look for a partner with a technology to add into or onto their offering. PeopleSoft is the latest to jump on this bandwagon, that Bantu has made a business of. We believe the addition of AIM to PeopleSoft is a great idea, and that IM as part of the customer interaction makes a great deal of sense, saves $ and increases productivity, not to mention increased customer satisfaction. Why PeopleSoft chose AIM over Yahoo or MSN we don't know, but there are a variety of solutions out there (Trellix, Bantu, etc.) that can bridge across the disparate IM camps transparently, so that any of the more public IM vendors is accessable.
AskMe Grows Beyond Q&A Frankly we are glad to see the additional investment AskMe
is making to extend its self out of the Q&A metaphor.
Although Q&A is a useful metaphor for finding information and
organizing online community, it is limited. The fact that they are
moving towards other content types and formats means that they will
be around and allows the company to grow techniclly in a variety
of directions. Guess we will have to wait until Q4 to see what they
have come up with, but knowing Steve Pao, their VP of Marketing,
I am sure they are on the right track.
7000 Heads Are Better Than One With WikiPedia As much as you may claim to be, or hope to be, all knowing, chances are good that you're not. But if you combine your knowledge, with my knowledge, with the knowledge of 7,000 or so others around the world, chances are good that we are collectively a whole lot smarter than we are individually. This philosophy is the guiding principle behind the two-year-old online encyclopedia Wikipedia, founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. It is now maintained and developed by approximately 7,000 users including 600 established contributors. As defined on its homepage, "Wikipedia is a multilingual project to create a complete and accurate open content encyclopedia." The idea is that everyone has some knowledge on a variety of subjects, so if the world puts their heads together the result will be a comprehensive encyclopedia. The site goes on to declare, "Our goal with Wikipedia is to create a free encyclopedia—indeed, the largest encyclopedia in history, both in terms of breadth and in terms of depth. We also want Wikipedia to become a reliable resource." Curiously, although Wikipedia is built on the importance of collaboration, it is nearly impossible to locate contact information for anyone on the site. There is no way to email the founders, or even the top contributors; the only viable form of communication seems to be via bulletin boards and discussion pages. Wikipedia is now available in 26 different languages. For more information see: www.wikipedia.org Does peer review constitute an online community? We once said that an online community was a group of people that met online on an ongoing basis with a specific purpose/goal and usually a set of engagement rules. By that definition WikiPedia is an online community, focused on knowledge and informatioin, interactions around content (peer review) help to drive the community forward (their goal is the wikipedia). We expect to see more of these new open communities with goals that serve everyone begin to emerge. Not only is it cheaper and easier to do this on the internet, but the level of interaction and cross referencing for the online encyclopedia is not something that could ever be accomplished in a paper version.
Interwoven Releases TeamSite 6.0 and Strengthens WatchFire Alliance Interwoven, Inc., a provider of content management for the enterprise, has launched Interwoven TeamSite 6.0 Content Server, extending content management access to all business users and enabling them to maintain control and distributed ownership of content across the enterprise. Interwoven introduces the latest version of its flagship product within the Interwoven 6 Platform, a new interface framework that features a customizable user experience designed to lower the learning curve and improve user efficiency. TeamSite 6.0 is designed to extend the benefit of content management across the enterprise by enabling faster time to market, increased workforce productivity, and better decision-making. Features in Interwoven's TeamSite 6.0 include: ContentCenter--Redesigned user experience for the Interwoven 6 platform. ContentCenter Standard--A business user interface featuring customizable, portal-style content management components for streamlined content contribution by casual contributors and approvers, subject matter experts, and line of business managers. Out-of-the-box components feature a forms component, streamlined content browsing, configurable online help, favorites, modified content, and a job management component. ContentCenter Professional--A user interface featuring a set of content management features for advanced users, Web masters, and administrators including branching, workflow, virtualization, versioning, security, and an open interface for authoring tool integration. FormsPublisher--A templating user interface that is customizable on a per-form basis featuring in-context help capabilities, task shortcuts, content containers and enhanced XML format support. ContentServices User Interface Toolkit--A toolkit that underpins ContentCenter allowing for user interface customizations as well as facilitating the creation of new customer interfaces. The Tooklit ensures that all customizations are preserved for future upgrades. Native support for IBM and BEA application servers--TeamSite 6.0 will enable enterprises to leverage IBM and BEA application servers to power Interwoven client applications using a J2EE framework. The TeamSite consists of the TeamSite Content Server software, TeamSite Content Stores and the TeamSite XML Server. TeamSite 6.0 is currently in Beta, and will be generally available in September 2003. Interwoven has also recently released it's 6.0 version and Watchfire, a provider of Web site Management software and services, has integrated Watchfire WebXM with the Interwoven 6 Platform. For more information see: www.interwoven.com Over the past year we have seen other content-oriented vendors like:iManage, SiteScape, Documentum, and OpenText all move more fully into the collaborative space. It looks like now Interwoven, a content management vendor is starting to see the value of collaboration. We at CS do not see reciprochal data access (which is what Interwoven has described above) as collaboration, but we do see it as a step in the right direction. We expect that by version 7 they will either have acquired or built in more collaborative technology, or will partner with some of the collaboration vendors to provide a content/collaboration solution.
CoCreate Launches OneSpace.net CoCreate Software, Inc., a provider of collaborative product development
software, launched it's OneSpace.net software. This engineering
collaboration tool allows project team members to manage projects,
share ideas and communicate effectively among diverse product development
teams and outsourcing partners. OneSpace.net is designed for product development teams and their contributors-such as marketing, sales, supply-chain partners, experts, and customers. Using OneSpace.net, project team members can work independently on their desktop or share their workspace with others online in real-time, using familiar tools and paradigms. The OneSpace.net tool provides: A secure project workspace; A meeting center to schedule meetings; and a 3D model explorer to view, inspect, measure, modify, and markup 3D models with complete accuracy. For more information on CoCreate see: www.cocreate.com We talked about CoCreate a bit last issue in the guest editorial I did with Irv Christy. We at CS think CoCreate gets it. They focus on a specific collaborative process (new product development) and they not only walk the walk and talk the talk, but they provide tools for distributed teams to work together to develop new products. We believe this is an area where there is some real value added to a collaborative application, instead of the vendor just providing a collaborative infrastructure and letting the end user figure it out!
Paul R. Gudonis is joining the Company as president and chief executive
officer and will be Gudonis, 49, brings more than 25 years of experience in information technology, Internet services, and application software to Centra. Most recently, he served as chairman and CEO at Genuity, Inc., growing the company from BBN's $5 million regional Internet backbone, BBN Planet, to a $1 billion provider of solutions to enterprise, government and Internet Service Provider (ISP) customers worldwide. After the sale of Genuity's assets to Level 3 Communications, Gudonis continued to serve as an executive vice president of the combined operation. Earlier in his career, Gudonis held executive positions at EDS, Ameritech, Appex Corporation, a provider of software and services to the wireless industry, and Spectrum Interactive, a provider of software and services for eLearning. For more information see: www.centra.com It is good to see a new person at Centra's helm. Since they have just moved into the e-meeting space, and are OEMing their RTC stack to SiteScape and others, it is a good time for some new blood to enter the organization. However, we believe that like Placeware, this new CEO is at Centra to get them ready for sale to a larger organization, as Centra now has to compete with the likes of IBM and Microsoft. Our guess on who the potential buyer will be would be one of the larger telecom companies that sees what Centra has to offer in e-learning and e-meetings as an extension of their current (but increasingly less lucrative) audio conferencing business. For more on this see the newly released RTC 2003 report on the CS website.
FaceTime Has Record 27% Growth for Q2 FaceTime is a provider of security, management and control solutions for instant messaging and other forms of real-time communications in the enterprise. FaceTime has announced continued sales momentum in the rapidly growing instant messaging market with record revenue results in the second quarter 2003. These second quarter results are in part from the company's expanded global reach, with installations of the company's software now spanning multiple geographies, including Asia Pacific, Japan, Germany, Australia, United Kingdom, France, Latin America, and North America. Increased demand for FaceTime's new Enterprise IT solutions for security, management, and control of IM represented the highest growth segment, resulting in 44% of total revenues for the quarter. The company's historical leadership in vertical market line-of-business solutions for regulatory compliance and customer service experienced continued growth through major repeat and new customer orders. A multitude of new customers representing all markets were signed through FaceTime's IM network provider partnerships. OEM royalty income from sales of partner solutions that embed FaceTime technology also exceeded that of the previous quarter. FaceTime's suite of security, management and control solutions enables IT organizations to apply standard business use policies to all diverse methods of real-time communications such as IM on any public, private or enterprise network as well as the ability to extend presence into business process workflow applications.FaceTime solutions for IM security and management are now in use by over 300 enterprises. For more information see: www.facetime.com It looks like FaceTime is cooking on all cylinders, and making hay while the sun shines. With high growth rates in EIM right now, the ability to securly link public and private IM networks and stil support enterprise security policies is critical. FaceTime is one of the first to offer these functions in a multi-network IM management platform, and it looks like many IT organizations are going for an IM management solution like this. IM has been a constanct (security) thorn in ITs side for the past few years. A solution that gives IT control without restricting the enterprise users or cutting them off from their value network on any of the major IM networks is a solution that has value today. However, we believe that in the near future AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo will all incorporate these functions into their EIM offerings.
Where Do I Find That Critical Information! Based on a recent survey done in June, 2003, Collaborative Strategies, focused on how information is shared sharing and how help is provided to others in the work environment. The objectives of the survey were to: Determine the use of technology by two classes of employees (managers and team members) to obtain desired information within their organization. To determine how these two groups of employees share information and answer questions posed by others in their organization. There were 288 qualified respondents to the survey who worked in a wide variety of industries (and government) and functions, including Sales, Marketing, Finance, R&D, Manufacturing, etc. Approximately half (48%) of the respondents worked for organizations with less than $500 million in annual revenue (or budget), while the remaining respondents (52%) worked for organizations with over $500 million in revenue (or budget). The respondents were also categorized by their role in the organization, which broke down into Managers (60%) and Team Members (40%). Summary of Survey Results Questions relating to the use of technology in organizations yielded the following results:
Questions relating to sharing information and answering questions of co-workers in organizations yielded the following results:
Analysis and Conclusions The responses to the technology-related questions clearly suggest the adoption of knowledge management technologies to support workers in organizations is still in the early stages, with only a third of them using a repository. The use of this technology, not surprisingly, occurs more often in larger organizations (defined as large if they have over $500M in revenue) as these organizations have the budget for this type of infrastructure. These technologies are evolving along with market awareness and the benefits that can be accrued from their deployment in organizations. What we found so interesting was the fact that employees, especially managers spent up to 1/3 of their time either answering others questions or getting their own answered. The responses to the questions related to information sharing and answering questions suggest there is significant room for improving employee productivity in the workplace by providing more efficient ways to answer questions, find expertise or obtain necessary information in a timely fashion. This can result in improved cycle times in completing work tasks and delivering higher quality work products for the organization. What this survey showed us at CS is that most organizations do not have a good KM strategy, and very few have a way to find expertise within or outside the company (besided personal networks). Although it is often hard to develop an ROI for KM, if we look at some of the survey findings which show that most managers spend 1//3 of their time or more answering questions (often ones they have answered many times before) or finding the answers to questions for someone, and assume that some type of KM software could cut this time in half, so that a manager may only spend 1/6 of their time doing this, the implications on ROI are enormous. For a manager that makes $80,000/year, that would be a $13,333 savings per manager. Assume you have 1000 managers in your organization, that could be a possible savings of over $13 million each year, not to mention the savings from "opportunity cost." If a quick calculation like this is not enough to make it easy to see the benefit and return for such KM software (if it works well), I am sure a more in depth and protracted study would show an even greater level of benefit. David Coleman is the Founder and Managing Director of Collaborative Strategies LLC. This column is his ideas and comments and do not necessarily represent the views of all of the analysts at Collaborative Strategies. If you wish to contact David directly please e-mail him at davidc@collaborate.com
Collaborative Strategies makes every effort to bring you timely, accurate information on collaboration and knowledge management. However, we are part of a rapidly evolving market ourselves and events occur during the publication of this newsletter every month that we do not become aware of or that happen post-production. If you know of such events, please contact David Coleman at Davidc@collaborate.com so we can note these key events in the next edition of this newsletter.
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In
past editorials we have talked about the 15 criteria we have developed
for “e-meetings,” one of which is security. E-meetings, unlike a
web conference, are usually small and intensely interactive and
both the content and the interaction need a higher level of security.
But what do we mean by security? Is supporting SSL really secure?
What about implementing a password to get into an interaction? Different
vendors in this space seem to define “secure” differently.
(David Coleman)