Working collaboratively involves a leap of faith. You enter into a project hoping that everyone will not only carry his or her part of the workload, but will work together to make the project come to fruition.
Trust came up in quite a few of our features this week. Always a necessity, it is becoming more of a challenge as the number of people working remotely increases.
What can companies do to foster trust? Are there any tools that help? Read on to find the answers.
Sharon O'Dea (@sharonodea): In offices the world over, a quiet revolution is underway. The costs of technology have fallen, the quality of social platforms vastly improved, and senior management attitudes have changed; after many years when it was simply an aspiration, or a buzzword, the digital workplace is fast becoming a reality.
Rachel Happe (@rhappe): 2012 has been a year of uncertainty. The economy is slowly improving, but with fits and starts and the recent IMF report confirms that the global economy is not beyond a dramatic meltdown. Close elections in the U.S. have everyone holding their breath until we know what direction the political winds are blowing. And technology continues its rapid pace of change, disrupting how we work, connect and collaborate.
Kevin Conroy (@seattlerooster): When I got word that CMSWire’s editorial focus for the month of October would be “enterprise collaboration and communication,” I immediately smiled, as this in itself showed some real progress for our industry. There’s no doubt journalists covering our space will continue to talk about “social business” and the “social enterprise” for some time to come (I’ve used this phrasing myself more than once), but “enterprise collaboration and communication” really cuts more to the chase of what I think we’re all trying to do here, which is to improve communication and productivity within the enterprise.
Maria Ogneva (@themaria): The world is changing fast; even the nature of change itself has changed, says futurist Thornton May. Many corporate systems are holdovers from a time when things changed less frequently, everything was more predictable, and content was created by a few and consumed by many. Corporate intranet gets a bad rap; but it’s just a perfectly good tool designed yesterday and being used by today’s jobs. You wouldn’t check out a book at a library to respond to a tweet from a customer, would you?
Julie Hunt (@juliebhunt):Enterprise Search continues to go through transformations to improve its usefulness for all employees, since information is common currency for practically everyone in every organization.
If there is one feature that everyone can agree upon in the Social Enterprise market, it’s mobile computing. IT professionals think it’s an important part of the Social Enterprise landscape and vendors fervently concur. As always, the devil is in the details.
Although everyone agrees on the importance of providing for mobile endpoints, mobile platform support from social collaboration software vendors varies greatly.
Support Plays Favorites
The good news is that mobile is considered a basic function of social software. The bad news is that there are “haves” and “have-nots.” While almost every vendor supports Apple’s iPhone, Android implementations are spottier. This variance is surprising given the increase in Android endpoints over the past few years.
Tablet support is emerging but, again, iPad support is more common than Android tablet implementations. Support for RIM’s Blackberry devices is a hit-or-miss affair as well. Blackberry implementations of social collaboration software are more likely to come from ISVs with established enterprise applications, such as IBM or SAP, rather than from newer companies. As RIM’s problems have increased, the Blackberry is clearly being pushed to the end of the list for social collaboration vendors. Overall, mobile support is inconsistent among vendors.
Spotty Solutions
The mobile and tablet user experiences are, arguably, different from the desktop or laptop experience. The user interface (UI) of mobile and tablet products differ, often dramatically, from the desktop UI. Smaller screen sizes, lower bandwidth, a plethora of platforms and a different set of needs by on-the-go end-users drives user interface design choices. For some vendors though, these choices amount to limiting features rather than reimagining the UI in terms of the mobile or tablet environment.
The unfortunate result of inconsistent support for mobile platforms is that many mobile users still cannot access their social software on the go or can do so only in a very limited manner. Some vendors are looking for solutions that can supplement or supplant their native mobile platform applications.
HTML5 has emerged as the lowest common denominator for reaching all end-points — including desktop/laptop platforms — in the absence of native applications. While native mobile applications have a number of advantages including offline operation and integration with special features of the mobile device, HTML5 brings a rich user experience to any platform that supports a compliant browser, albeit at a higher need for bandwidth.
As the Social Enterprise market evolves, mobile computing is evolving with it. Support for current and new platforms as well as HTML5 will be on the rise and will be a core part of the Social Enterprise feature set.
Senior Analyst Tom Petrocelli covers the Social Enterprise for the Enterprise Strategy Group. He has more than 27 years of experience in technology, technical marketing, and management. Tom is the author of the book Data Protection and Information Lifecycle Management as well as many articles and two blogs dealing with technology and business.
Considering the product is unseen, unannounced and might still be a collective hallucination, everyone has been very keen on the "iPad Mini" name which has apparently been confirmed, but not by Apple, so a surprise could still be on the cards. Then there's that mysterious hole that cases and templates are being designed around. What could peeking into that reveal?
An Apple Rumor A Day
With iPad Mini case designs popping out all over the place, this thing has to be real right? Well that didn't work out so well for those first-generation iPhone 5 cases, that preceded the launch of the iPhone 4S, so hold the phone on that one. However, those pesky Asian sources seem to think the name will stick, so at least these companies can start doing their marketing.
Western-based reports are also suggesting the Mini will get its own launch event for October, leaving the real iPhone 5 to bask in its own glory. But what's that hole in the cases we're seeing? The Asian reports suggest it might be part of a new IR remote control feature for interacting with your forthcoming (2014 maybe) Apple TV set.
With Apple's recent court win over Samsung, almost any new addition to a device will be given immense scrutiny, so it'll be interesting to see who claims those patents, if that's what it is for. For the October event, Apple could still introduce a new level of iTunes content subscription to try to increase revenue from those buying the lower-priced iPad.
Windows 8 Tablets Sexing It Up
To compete with the new iPad, new Kindle Fire, and Nexus 7 among others, the forthcoming Windows 8 tablet line up are adding all manner of attractive features to offer some differentiation and competition. Sony's Vaio 11 looks to be offering a fold-away keyboard while Samsung is teasing something sleek looking in a new video.
However, in a keenly price-sensitive environment, just how will these high-end sounding devices cope? No matter how many early Windows 8 adopters there are out there, it looks like there will be more casualties than winners in this particular battle.
Why is everyone suddenly mad for the late Serbian superstar?
Matthew Inman--the comic illustrator behind The Oatmeal--won a thumping victory against FunkyJunk's lawyer in June and raised more than $220,000 for cancer research and bear preservation. His latest campaign is to raise money to build a museum in memory of legendary inventor Nikola Tesla--and it's an even bigger hit.
Matthew Inman: Tesla guy
Inman says his previous campaign was "more an act of self defense." A compelling story was at hand--a predatory lawyer drawing up a ludicrous suit against a victimized comic artist--so naturally, the Internet was interested. With the Tesla museum drive, there was no villain, and Inman was initially skeptical. "I wondered if people are going to get excited about an inventor who's been dead for 70 years," he says.
He never should have worried. The fundraiser turned out to be hugely popular, and the project crossed its $850,000 goal in six days. Earlier today, after the campaign had smashed the $1 million mark, Inman posted that: "At its peak, the campaign was raising $27,000 per hour, crashing Indiegogo, and probably setting some kind of land speed record in awesomeness."
The Wardenclyffe site in Shoreham, New York, was the location of an enormous tower that Tesla, who died in 1943, tried to build, with the ambitious goal of providing electricity to the rest of the world. When its owners put the land up for sale in 2009, then-assemblyman Marc Alessi agreed to pledge $850,000 in state money towards purchasing and restoring the project--if the Tesla Science Center could raise that money and spend it on the site first. With their window of opportunity to claim the cash expiring in the fall of 2013, the Center was in a bit of a hurry to raise funds, Tesla Science Center president Jane Alcorn wrote in an email to Fast Company. That's when Inman stepped in with his generous online army of Tesla fans.
Inman says the $850,000 goal was made in order to purchase the property, and any money over that amount will be used to build the actual museum.
Inman's fascination with the Tesla project began about two years ago. He felt like his slew of world-changing science projects didn't get the recognition they deserved. "Everyone knew who Thomas Edison was, and no one knew who Tesla was." First Inman wrote an essay-like comic for his book. That was followed by a web comic--Why Tesla Was The Greatest Geek Who Ever Lived. "When I wrote it I was like, it's way too long. This isn't a joke... I thought no one would like it." Inman had underestimated Tesla's power yet again, and the comic practically broke the Faceboook Like button. (To the tune of some 500,000 Likes in a week, Inman estimates.)
Incredibly, nearly 70 years since he died, unsung and penniless in a hotel room at the Hotel New Yorker, Tesla is making a major comeback. Musical Tesla coils are having their moment. There's the Tesla movie starring Christian Bale and Nicolas Cage as his rival, Thomas Edison, in its rumored cast. There are at least two film projects based on his life and work looking for contributions on Indiegogo.
As Tesla's self-appointed champion, Inman recently found himself getting tweets that Tesla's old workspace in New York was for sale, the Tesla Science Center was looking for donations, and perhaps he could do something about it. "With this army of Tesla fans who read my comics, combined with the success I had in June, I thought, we had a pretty good shot at raising some money."
Inman petitioned General Electric (set up by Edison), Bale, and Google, among others, to help out.
He even wrote to Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, SpaceX and--here's the money part--Tesla Motors. Musk responded, saying Tesla was a hero of his, and although the Tesla corp funds "need to be preserved for the operation of the business," he would make a made a personal donation to the project. "I will make a donation online and would be happy to talk to Jane [Alcorn]," Musk wrote in an email, after Jalopnik editor Matt Hardigree introduced Musk to Inman and the project. "It is important to make sure that the site is preserved."
Inman also says he was contacted by a group of GE aeronautics engineers who want to pool together and make personal donation. No word from Bale yet.
Inman isn't bothered by the fact that the museum he backs will be the second in the world. He's already visited the first one in Belgrade, where Tesla grew up, (in fact hopes the Serbian government will donate, sells, or lend some of Tesla's effects to the new site). Oddly enough, on the back of his Tesla comic hit, Inman was invited by the U.S. Embassy to go back to the museum to give a talk. (He turned it down, because it clashed with the timing of his book tour.)
Astute Googlers will notice a Tesla museum of a sort already claims to be the only Tesla museum in the U.S. and is located in Colorado Springs. So how does Inman feel about creating a buzz around the second museum on U.S. soil? This Tesla nut has done his homework. "I was in Colorado Springs six weeks ago. There's no museum, it's just a guy in the desert." Tesla had a Colorado Springs lab where he used to do some of his edgier experiments, and the site hosted a museum for a short time after Tesla died. But all that's gone. "Now it's just one guy and he does a traveling Tesla show and will come over to your school and hand out Tesla coils."
Inman is open to backing other public interest projects, and has an idea to do a yearly fundraiser. And it'll likely involve bears. "I use bears constantly," Inman admits, "If I'm having a slow comic day, I'm like, 'Fuck it, let's put some bears and poop in there. I feel like I owe the bears something."
Everyone wants to believe that there is a single bullet solution to solve all SharePoint problems. While the answers are never that simple, the starting point is: asking the question "why?"
Ant Clay, Founder and CEO of Soulsailor Consulting Ltd, is one of a new breed of SharePoint business technology consultants. Known to ask clients repeatedly “Why?” until they breakdown and admit “they just don’t know,” we thought we'd turn the tables on him to ask a few questions about SharePoint, governance and the upcoming release of SharePoint 2013.
Question: What do think is SharePoint 2010’s strongest capability? Why?
Ant Clay: SharePoint 2010’s strongest capability is probably its downfall for most organizations and that is its “flexibility.” With a good SharePoint business consultant, developer, designer and architect you can create pretty much any awesome business functionality you want.
Being more specific, what I love about SharePoint 2010 when compared to previous versions and other platforms is Managed Metadata. I love having the ability to use both a formal structured taxonomy as well as a folksonomy and even promote items from the folksonomy into the structured taxonomy.
The real benefits for customers I think is that this opens up a world of being able to present contextual information (knowledge, people, content and actionable activities) based on who you are, preferences, where you are in the solution and what you are doing. Definitely an area that can deliver significant business value to both organizations and individuals alike.
Q: When it comes to implementing SharePoint, where do most organizations go wrong? Is it more about a good Info Architecture or a strong governance strategy?
AC: I think, actually that’s not true, I know that most organizations go wrong with SharePoint by focusing their time and efforts on what is complicated, but not truly complex and that is the technology implementation. There is a common tendency to not consider the following four areas which I see as being of utmost importance for success and business value:
SharePoint Vision/Strategy
Business Alignment
Holistic Governance Approach
Change Management.
The reality is that SharePoint projects are in essence people projects and therefore are not straightforward — we need to deal with this complexity and best practices just don’t cut it.
I see Information Architecture as a small but very important part of Information Governance which again is just a single “wave” in what I refer to as “The Waves of SharePoint Governance” which covers a range of areas key to good governance.
So to answer your question I see that Governance is most important, but that contains a number of elements that all need to be addressed holistically.
Q: Speaking of governance, what is the first thing an organization should consider when creating their SharePoint governance strategy? Is there a one size fits all approach to SharePoint governance?
AC: The first thing is not to kill too many trees! :) Seriously the amount of governance documents that are 10’s if not 100’s of pages long that get printed, never read and left gathering dust is amazing.
The first thing to consider about SharePoint Governance has nothing to do with governance at all, it’s understanding the platform or project's vision, its “why?” or the difference it is going to make for the organization. If you have within the project team and across the organization a shared understanding and shared commitment to that “why” then governance becomes that much easier.
There isn’t a one-size fits all approach to SharePoint Governance in my mind, but there are two focal points:
What it is
How to apply it
“What it is” refers to the governance framework that you adopt. There are lots out there, but I would recommend people adopt one that isn’t technology focused and leads with the business; I’ve developed a framework “Waves of SharePoint Governance” which I’ll be writing about in more detail soon (and will form the basis of the book I am currently writing!).
Considering the product is unseen, unannounced and might still be a collective hallucination, everyone has been very keen on the "iPad Mini" name which has apparently been confirmed, but not by 
