(If you’re following my Grand Canyon story, the next post is coming soon. This week is Lotusphere.)
The W3C sponsored an online forum to study opinions on social business. The results of the Jam have been compiled and they published their results yesterday.
The jam focused on 6 aspects of social technology:
- Identity Management for Social
- Mobile and Social
- Information Management
- Business Process Meets Social
- Seamless Integration of Social
- Metrics for Social Business
Not familiar with who the W3C is? In their words, The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community that develops open standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web.” This is the organization that tries to define industry standards that make integrating computer systems possible. Without them, the world wide web (www.) would not exist.
As Lotusphere 2012 is all about Social Business, the timing of this report is appropriate. The report provides some great insight into the future of social business from the viewpoint of the jam participants. A few points:
- Only 18% of the participants Social Business is just marketing hype. I don’t hold much faith in the longevity of their businesses. But that also means 82% of those surveyed see Social Business as a real part of business today. That is important if you are in the business of Social Business. That means opportunity.
- Only 7% of the participants have only one identity on the web. Does that mean we all suffer from dissociative identity disorder? I hope not. Does it mean we don’t trust the world enough to let our whole self be seen by everyone? Perhaps at least to some degree. For example, many people don’t use the same identity on LinkedIn as they use on Facebook because they don’t want their employer or prospective employer to know about their personal life. But it may also say something about how people play many roles in their lives and that one identity cannot represent us appropriately. You see this in twitter profiles all the time: “CIO, whitewater kayaker, father”. This becomes relevant because it’s the commonalities you share outside of business that make the strongest bonds for doing business. It’s the fraternity effect, as I call it. For Social Business to be most effective, it will need to be able to handle our split personalities.
- The report reveals how we treat our constant-connections of mobile phones so differently from all other devices. Not just that technology must accommodate this in many ways including partial data wipes that remove corporate data while leaving personal data untouched. The implications go into the usability features of the devices themselves too. Think “It’s not business, it’s personal.” for a mobile phone, but “it’s not personal, it’s just business” for the desktop.
- The respondents also see value in social technologies in how they can handle exceptions to processes more effectively than structured forms. This will shine most in a crisis. If you are familiar with Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity, you can see how this could fit in. Imagine a natural disaster hits the headquarters of a company. While their computer systems will survive if they properly setup a co-located data center, layers of leadership may not be available. Social technologies are inherently flat organizationally, allowing people at all levels to communicate directly with the people they need to in the most effective manner.
- An interesting point that will play out in the near future is the response to the survey question “I want social tools integrated with my other applications”. This is exactly what IBM is doing with IBM Connections and the Social Edition of Lotus Notes coming soon. 65% agree. I expect those that disagreed probably just couldn’t envision such an integrated world. They probably don’t realize that they already have that in places like facebook (if they use it.)
If you want an idea of where social software is going, this report is a worthwhile read.
Important secret detail about upcoming IamLUG conference in St. Louis next month
Sun, Apr 14th 2013 12:15p David Hablewitz Lotus IBM professionals, have you made plans to attend IamLUG? Perhaps you never get to attend Lotusphere / IBM Connect because it’s so expensive for the travel and the conference fee? This is your chance to get all of the meat of the Big conference without all of the fluff. You won’t get an evening trip to one of the theme parks. You won’t have all the hoopla and grandeur of the Opening General Session or the intellectual entertainment of the Closing Session. But you&# [read] Keywords: domino
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A web resource by the Federal government to educate managers and employees about effective telecommuting
Mon, Mar 4th 2013 5:16a David Hablewitz In light of all the recent controversy Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has stirred up over telecommuting, you may be interested in checking out this online resource by the U.S. Government. It has training materials if you are a telecommuter or if you manage telecommuters or if you are a telecommuter coordinator.
http://www.telework.gov
One trend I have noticed in the computer industry is that, when it comes to working remotely, companies tend to be much more tolerant of it for software developers than [read] Keywords: office
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Breaking News: The Passport Advantage website has been updated!
Thu, Feb 28th 2013 10:11p David Hablewitz In case you hadn’t noticed, the Passport Advantage website has a new look. I have not yet had a chance to explore it in detail. It looks like some (but not all) of the old issues have been cleaned up and it sports the new IBM website skin. I will post a more detailed review later. Meanwhile, take a moment to have a look. For comparison, see my article reviewing it almost 2 years ago. I’m anxious to see what was done that took 2 years of business justification and web development to [read] Keywords: ibm
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IBM announces MobileFirst and partnership with AT&T
Tue, Feb 26th 2013 11:14a David Hablewitz News sources are reporting the new announcement of IBM MobileFirst solutions portfolio. This is big because, unlike other players in this market, IBM is the leader in remaining device agnostic in the BYOD (bring your own device) business world. Mobile technology is blurring the lines between consumer and business tools. There is no doubt in my mind as I watch my 13-year-old daughter do 90% of her computer-related activities on her smartphone that this is the destiny of technology. It is [read] Keywords: ibm
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Putting Social Media to the test: Face-to-face vs. Online
Thu, Feb 14th 2013 3:11p David Hablewitz Which delivery method do you think has the greatest impact: Face-to-face, telephone, or online? Certainly face-to-face allows you to deliver the most personal message, but the web allows for a much broader reach. Phone calls are somewhere in between. So here is the challenge…
I am a firm believer in charity. I feel it is important to give back to the community. Over the years I have been helping with the YMCA Partners With Youth (PWY) campaign. This fund provides scholarships to families [read] Keywords: connections
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Doing well or not, it’s all about attitude.
Tue, Feb 12th 2013 7:11p David Hablewitz I first posted this in my status on Facebook. But the comments that followed my post made me realize this is relevant to a broader audience, so I will share it again here.
These people on the Carnival cruise adrift in the Gulf of Mexico are complaining because they have no air conditioning, no lights, no flushing toilets, limited hot and cold food, stuck in close quarters with a bunch of people they don’t know. Some are sleeping in tents outside because it’s so hot. Funny. We h [read] Keywords: facebook
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How IBM is raising the stakes with Social Business right in Microsoft’s back yard.
Mon, Feb 11th 2013 12:10p David Hablewitz IBM is coming to Seattle to talk about Social Business!
See the event schedule. The event is March 5.
Did I have anything to do with this? Not that I’m aware of. But I am glad to see IBM finally recognize the Seattle area market is tired of having no options besides Microsoft to choose from. Like everywhere else, businesses here like innovation and they like competition.
So from the makers of Watson, the computer that beat the champions on Jeopardy! and the perennial leader in new p [read] Keywords: collaboration
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Passport Advantage Revisited 2 years later…
Thu, Jan 31st 2013 6:12a David Hablewitz In August 2011 I posted an article giving a detailed analysis of the design of the IBM Passport Advantage website. That article received a great deal of attention, not only from the Lotus user community, but also from executives at IBM. I was even contacted by the person who oversaw the team responsible for the site. Finally, I thought, we would see some relief in our pain dealing with this website.
It’s nearly 2 years later. There have been some changes to the IBM websites, but Pas [read] Keywords: ibm
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Preparing for IBM Connect 2013 (Lotusphere) and another “Outlook can’t do that” moment
Tue, Jan 22nd 2013 9:17p David Hablewitz As I review my flight itinerary, I’m looking forward to the Alaska Air non-stop from Seattle to Orlando, fondly known as…The Disney Flight. No lie. See the photo.
This time there will be no missing B.A.L.D. due to missed connections, flight cancellations or delays because of a storm blanketing the center of the country. Wuhoo!
As I added my IBM Connect (Lotusphere) Conference travel plans to my IBM Lotus Notes calendar, Alaska Airlines graciously pointed out on their website y [read] Keywords: connections
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