Shimano are a major manufacturer of cycling and fishing equipment: As Shimano’s Global EBusiness Director Julian Lambert is responsible for internal business unit as well as external partner and sales, plus associated enterprise content management and other tools.
Julian has a great global business outlook combined with our common experience together of working for two large Japanese enterprises (Shimano & PlayStation) which tends to educate you in both eastern and western culture.
Thinking through ways of effectively collaborating across these cultural boundaries is very illuminating. julian discusses his criteria for tool evaluation which essentially comes down to meeting business need. Sarbanes Oxley in the US and its Japanese equivelant JSox (Shimano are publically listed in Japan) are significant security constraints.
We discuss open source: Alfresco is a big part of Shimano’s internal environment. The openness and flexibility of open source allows Julian to meet new business needs internally as they evolve.
Julian discusses how the Alfresco platform, which is rolled out internationally within a passwork protected extranet, has evolved from content management to gradually become a collaboration and communication hub.
Exposing users to where everything is and their knowing who has interacted with assets is an often under rated but incredibly valuable attribute that streamlines workflow, while easy to understand new tools in this environment are getting picked up and used more quickly as user adoption blossoms.
Open source tool options and associated support underpinnings are increasingly attractive, but first priority is business utility regardless of whether a technology is proprietary or not…
Today is short notes day, here are three interesting bits and pieces for you to ponder. First, there’s a quick look at the GTD Global Summit, an opportunity to drink the Kool-Aid of productivity, 2.0 style (I am a panelist and have 3 golden tickets — 50% off registrations — to offer, read on to find out how to get one). Second, a thumbnail review of what might be the first “2.0″ business parable, Where in the World is my Team? And finally, a pointer to a rather unique dashboard, since we’ve been on that topic, thanks to Irwin Lazar.
As companies deploy (or simply allow) Web 2.0 tools in their organizations, they often forget the need for enterprise content management. But as employees use and contribute to wikis, blogs and social networking tools, they create a lot of content–and that content needs to be secured, compliant, and accessible to others within the organization. For more on this topic, check out this podcast, and post your comments below.
Steve’s comments below got me thinking about why we don’t just accept information overload, but actually ask for it.
There was plenty of chatter in the blogs this weekend over the decision by the Obama campaign to text its supporters news of the VP pick as soon as it happened (well, as soon as the campaign was ready to release it). Most of it seemed centered around (1) the timing of the text’s release (another 3am brouhaha), (2) the “next-gen Internet outreach” approach, and (3) the pick himself. Mainly lost in the discussion was whether anyone really needed to know the information in real time, on their cells and PDAs.
I love the flexibility Enterprise 2.0 tools provide and have made it somewhat of a personal quest to find new ways to use these tools to make my job easier. But as I and my employer adopt new applications to help manage information, I find the number of tools and all the little pockets of information they generate to be a little unmanageable. Here’s why:
Googles Knol is now live. Knol is part wiki, part blog, and part social computing platform though it is most often being compared with Wikipedia. Essentially Knol is an information repository, but where it differs from Wikipedia is that knols, or pieces of knowledge, require a verified author. The idea being that a reader is likely to find an article on say "macro-economics in Macedonia more authorititive if it is written by a verifiable subject matter expert, than if it is anonymously compiled ala Wikipedia.
I attended the SocialMedia BarCamp yesterday at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco. Working in an organization that produces large events such as Enterprise 2.0, I was looking forward to being part of a grass roots, completely user-generated event. I wanted to experience an event on the other end of the organization spectrum.
BarCamp came about through the efforts of the web community in response to Tim O’Reilly’s invitation-only FooCamp. They are organized and marketed through web 2.0 tools, and users are encouraged to participate in the Open Grid Sessions. Anyone in the community can host a BarCamp, and utilize the wiki. We provide a similar UnConference opportunity for Enterprise 2.0 attendees with Enterprise2Open.
As blogging moves into the enterprise, one of the biggest questions managers face is whether to monitor the sites, and if so, how much. They can look to the consumer world for cues. Personal blogs (one person sharing his thoughts on his life, or perhaps a more specific topic) are monitored by the blogger directly; since the blogger isnt representing anyone else, let alone an organization, he isnt answerable to anyone but himself and can choose to allow or disallow comments as he see fit. The issue gets more interesting when we look at media sitesnewspapers, magazines and the likethat allow readers to post comments to articles and posts. Continue Reading »
Irecently learned of an interesting tool for schools and their students, called Web Lockers. According to the vendor, students “can use the lockers to upload homework assignments and projects, send and receive assignments, view graded work, and communicate with teachers and classmates outside of the classroom. For added collaboration, School Web Lockers also provides teacher blogs and message boards (for school-wide or even district-wide online discussions.)”
It’s Wednesday night, the big two days of the Enterprise 2.0 conference are coming to an end. I’ve blogged a ton and shot a lot of video at the conference. The overall sentiment I’m getting from all the attendees and from all the sessions I’ve attended is that enterprise 2.0 is not there yet, but it’s going to happen, it’s inevitable. Here’s a summary of the top learnings from the conference:
Young people entering the workforce communicate with Web 2.0 tools. They want more than just email.
Cloud computing is an easy way to launch a service and scale, but it’s far from being a true utility like electricity.
To innovate, you need to harness the wisdom of your network. First start with your staff and then move to partners and your audience.
When you create a collaborate Enterprise 2.0 space, TRUST your audience. Release the desire to control. Don’t control. Even the CIA recommends this.
Change management. Adoption requires evangelism and constant reminders and associating Web 2.0 tools with everything you’re doing.
Don’t just deploy social media for the sake of deploying social media. Develop a strategic business rationale.
There are tons of companies that offer business social networking solutions. Some are trying to offer everything, and some are just trying to solve a single problem.
Allow people to engage with your company outside of your .com business address. Let them engage with your brand where they already like to go, like Facebook, MySpace, etc.
And here’s a summary of all my coverage from the event. It’s a total of 23 posts of which seven include video. Enjoy. :)
The Enterprise 2.0 Blog is affiliated with the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, an event focusing on social tools and technologies that help make companies more creative, agile and productive.
Apr 6th, 2009 |
It’s Wednesday night, the big two days of the Enterprise 2.0 conference are coming to an end. I’ve blogged a ton and shot a lot of video at the conference. The overall sentiment I’m getting from all the attendees and from all the sessions I’ve attended is that enterprise 2.0 is not there yet, but it’s going to happen, it’s inevitable. Here’s a summary of the top learnings from the conference:
