Posts Tagged 'community'



The facebook test

Met with another government agency today, to discuss about social software for the enterprise, or Enterprise 2.0. As I mentioned before there’s a hugh difference between Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0, and implementing social software solutions within the firewall is not that common. Yet.

The meeting was actually a lead from the KM Summit I lectured a month ago, and today I met the KM Manager of that agency. They are a pretty large agency, with couple departments, already using internal portal and other KM tools, so they are quite advanced in that aspect. Still, Enterprise 2.0 is something entirely different.

When we started talking freely about the value and benefits of Enterprise 2.0 I decided to try the facebook test, out of the blue. I didn’t rehearse this before the meeting, it was an ad-hoc attempt, to see how many employees are members of that government agency group on facebook.
We found over 20 different groups, in one of them – 500 members. Impressive.

What did we learn?
First, the demand is out there, people want to share their content and connect online. It’s their way of communicating with the world, and even with their friends.
Second, when lacking the right tools within the firewall, they turn to tools outside the firewall, sharing content that should have stayed inside.
Third, it’s time to seriously consider Enterprise 2.0 tools. And that’s the hard part.

70 million ‘new’ chatters

facebook announced today that this week, April 6th, is the week facebook chat will roll-out. This new ‘killer’ app was on the sights of many developers, analysts and bloggers, and I guess facebook developers got the same memo.
“We’ll be rolling this (facebook chat) out slowly going forward, but fairly soon you’ll notice our new Chat bar at the bottom of your browser—no installation or assembly required. From this bar you can view your list of online friends and open conversations with any or all of them. There’s no need to setup a buddy list.”
Couple of questions for the community/developers:

  • will you be able to multi-chat with several friends?
  • what advanced functionality will the chat have (screenshare, screengrab, file sharing)?
  • will the facebook chat API be available for developers (plugin for telephony for instance?)?

Now, a challenge to my Lotus colleagues in Israel and the US – add facebook chat as another community to my Lotus Sametime client or embed Lotus Notes 8.0.1 client… that would revolutionize the industry (and create some new security issues, for sure.. 😉

With additional 69 millions public IM users, I bet the guys over at Gartner are very happy now, seeing their predictions become a reality.

It’s all about LIVE sharing

Microsoft Israel Tech-Ed 2008 started today in Eilat, and as usual the event is set to be one of the biggest IT events this year. Every year Microsoft attract thousands of customers, analysts, bloggers, press and consultants – for an event mostly known for the party on the 2nd day.

What I wanted to share with you is the excellent work Microsoft Israel are doing with respects to viral marketing, led by Lior Zoref, Digital Marketing Group. The digital group, along with Tech-Ed staff, are using every web 2.0 medium available to convey the Tech-Ed spirit to attendees and people who couldn’t join in person: blogs, videos, audios, pictures and web.

Prior to the event there was even a 5min video, explaining ‘how to persuade your boss to let you go to Tech-Ed‘. Genius.

Microsoft are also taking the blogging community seriously, and draws the equation blogger=journalist. The bloggers attended the press briefing Sunday morning, to get all the updates and guidelines. Bloggers even got some cute giveaways, such as a power expander (to charge more than one appliance), USB to Cellphone thingy, Energy Bar (to keep those fingers working) and more.

Although I compete with Microsoft on solutions, and not agree with all their tactics and strategies, they are doing an excellent job in adopting and embracing the community, which often lead to greater sympathy… and sympathy can go a long way

Web 2.0 vs. Enterprise 2.0

Earlier this week I attended the 1st meeting of the newly formed ‘Web 2.0 Forum‘, hosted by GAIT, a prominent Knowledge Management consulting company in Israel. The meeting was held at an insurance company who’s CIO is a true collaboration evangelist, who single handedly transformed the IT in that company, and brought it to the 21st century.

The participants of the forum included colleagues and friends, vendors and customers, from every aspect of the IT arena – tech, academic, business, HR, knowledge management and consulting. It was very refreshing doing a round table with colleagues who share my passion, and I thank Gil (GAIT) for inviting me to the forum. The next meeting will be hosted at IBM, where I’ll expose the forum to some of the super cool platforms and solutions IBMers are using daily, and to the Lotus Collaboration solutions that spur from our own experience.

One of the Web 2.0 Forum goals is to increase the penetration of web 2.0 technologies and platforms into the business, and one of the main points from the round table the participants had revolved around the difference between Web 2.0 (facebook, blogs, linked-in, twitter, etc) and Enterprise 2.0 (Portals, social software, collaboration, social bookmarking, etc).
Although Web 2.0 is alive and kicking in Israel, personally I feel that Enterprise 2.0 isn’t here yet. It’s knocking at the door, pleading the security guy to let her in, but no access. Blocked.
Web 2.0 Forum should help all knowledge advocates in Israel to change that.

Later that week I met with a prominent pharma customer, who attended LCTY Israel late March. After the event, during lunch, we started talking about their interest to build ‘something’ at their infrastructure, that would increase the collaboration and sense of community at the workplace. I noticed that although they were very positive about collaboration and community, their organization didn’t share their enthusiasm. There is work and there is fun – and right now, Web 2.0 is categorized under fun. That’s exactly why Web 2.0 Forum is important – to change the culture, and making CIO/CTO/CEO understand that Enterprise 2.0 = Growth.
That’s quite a chllenge, but hey, I didn’t say it’s gonna be easy… 🙂

In that context, of changing the mindset regarding the business value of Enterprise 2.0, a presentation I gave at Knowledge Management Summit, early March – Understanding Social Networking – Getting Started.

Free for social networking next Thursday ?


8 days before Enterprise Collaboration and Social Software event (a.k.a LCTY Israel/Lotus Collaboration Event) and tension is rising… our day is coming.. fast…
60 people have registered so far, and our telemarketing guys are doing an excellent job answering calls and telling people what we gonna cover during our event.

3 IBM/Lotus executives will be joining us next week in Israel, meeting customers and business partners, other than speaking at the event:
Alan Lepofsky, Lotus Strategy, SWG – coming all the way from Boston;
Jason Risley, WebSphere Portal Sales Manager for South-West Europe – traveling from Madrid;
and Arjan Radder, Social Software Sales Manager for South-West Europe – from The Netherlands.

We have a full agenda, with business partners showcase, excellent speakers and live demos – but seating is limited… hurry to register. There are couple of ways to do that:

So, what are you doing next Thursday ?

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Mobile & Media Consultant. I help startup companies launch products to the consumer market. Reach out: dvir.reznik [at] gmail.com
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This is my personal blog. The postings here do not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my past employers or of my clients. It is solely my opinion.