Andy Powell, the head of development at Eduserv Foundation, thought he would just dip a toe into the blogosphere, but fell head over heels for virtual worlds and e-debates
Q Where is your blog?
A http://efoundations.typepad.com It's a joint blog, written by me and my Eduserv colleague Pete Johnston.
Q What's it like?
A The blog's strapline is "metadata, middleware, elearning", which is what we thought we were going to write about when we started blogging. In practice, we also cover Web 2.0, the semantic web, open access, digital libraries, metadata, middleware, e-learning, online identity, virtual worlds and anything else that takes our fancy. It's 99.99% work-related. If we want to write about personal stuff we tend to do so elsewhere.
Q How long have you been blogging?
A We started in September 2006. Since then we have tried to keep up a steady stream of about two postings per week, preferably more. Any less and a blog starts to feel unloved.
Q What started you blogging?
A It's so long ago I don't recall the details but I'm pretty sure there was a certain amount of keeping up with the Joneses about it, coupled with a sense of frustration at the demise of any real debate on mailing lists at the time (partly because the more prolific thinkers and writers were beginning to concentrate on their blogs).
Q Do you comment on other blogs?
A In an ideal world, blogging is part of a conversation with the reader. But it doesn't always work out like that and often it's the more contentious posts that get most comments even though they aren't necessarily the most thought through. Real conversation leads to new thinking and I think an important feature of a good blogger is the ability to admit mistakes or acknowledge when a new position has emerged.
Q How does your organisation benefit from your blog?
A Blogging (and other forms of new media) provides a point of contact between an organisation and its 'customers' that tends to be less formal, less rigid and more peer-to-peer than channels offered by traditional marketing. It enables real debate around products and services that simply wouldn't happen in other ways. The personal level of contact also helps to build up external trust in the organisation.
Q Does it help your career?
A I hope there is a synergistic relationship between the blog, the organisation, our community and me. The blog significantly raises my personal profile, as well as giving me a forum for debate and interaction that no longer seems to exist elsewhere. It's also a useful place to vent frustration and let off steam.
Q Which blogs do you read for fun?
A Sadly, I read a lot of work blogs for fun, but, putting those to one side, I try to catch up on both XKCD http://xkcd.com and PostSecret http://postsecret.blogspot.com as often as I can. I also read a lot of Second Life blogs, of which I'll pick out two from the UK: the Adventures of Yoshikawa adventuresofyoshikawa.blogspot.com and TidalBlog http://tidalblog.blogspot.com which has a more technical focus.
Q Do you have a personal blog?
A My personal blog is, well, personal! I don't write much on it and what I do write is targeted at myself, my family and friends. I do write a Second Life blog, under the pseudonym of my Second Life avatar, Art Fossett, known as ArtsPlace SL http://artfossett.blogspot.com It isn't as popular as the eFoundations blog, but it is well read enough to make it worthwhile continuing to write.
Q Which bloggers do you read and link to?
A Way too many! For libraryrelated discussion, I read Lorcan Dempsey
http://orweblog.oclc.org
Stu Weibel
http://weibel-lines.typepad.com
and the various Talis blogs.
For e-learning, I read Stephen Downes (who doesn't?)
http://www.downes.ca
Grainne Conole
www.e4innovation.com
and Alan Levine
http://cogdogblog.com
In the middleware/identityspace, I read Kim Cameron
www.identityblog.com
David Recordon
http://daveman692.livejournal.com
and Drummond Reed
www.equalsdrummond.name
For general discussion around the web and Web 2.0 in education and the cultural heritage sector, I read Brian Kelly
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com
and Mike Ellis
http://electronicmuseum.org.uk
All of these bloggers provide a great way of staying up to date and offer some challenging viewpoints.
Friday 29 August 2008
Wednesday 27 August 2008
Grant application limit for Elsevier Foundation programme approaches
Scientific and technical publishers, Elsevier, are reminding scholars that applications for funding from the charitable Elsevier Foundation are due shortly. The deadline to submit by is September 15th.
The Elsevier Foundation comprises of the Innovative Libraries Programme and the New Scholars Programme. Funding will comprise of awards ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 per year. These will be allocated as one, two, or three year grants.
The Libraries Programme is dedicated to encouraging the growth and access of library resources to researchers, librarians and academics, particularly through developing digital resources and sponsoring collaboration between libraries across the developed and developing world.
The new scholars programme will assist STM academics faced with the challenge of maintaining a scholarly career and providing suitable childcare.
David Ruth, Executive Director, Elsevier Foundation said "The Elsevier Foundation aims to improve the quality of life for people throughout the world by supporting the advancement of and access to scientific, technical and medical knowledge"
Earlier this year, Elsevier announced that it had awarded nearly $600,000 to academics from applications submitted in 2007. A total of 13 institutions won their part of funds from a total of 150 applications received by the organisation.
"Our great winners are recognised for their efforts enabling talented individuals from diverse backgrounds to develop successful careers, maximising the benefit to science and society" said Ruth.
The Elsevier Foundation comprises of the Innovative Libraries Programme and the New Scholars Programme. Funding will comprise of awards ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 per year. These will be allocated as one, two, or three year grants.
The Libraries Programme is dedicated to encouraging the growth and access of library resources to researchers, librarians and academics, particularly through developing digital resources and sponsoring collaboration between libraries across the developed and developing world.
The new scholars programme will assist STM academics faced with the challenge of maintaining a scholarly career and providing suitable childcare.
David Ruth, Executive Director, Elsevier Foundation said "The Elsevier Foundation aims to improve the quality of life for people throughout the world by supporting the advancement of and access to scientific, technical and medical knowledge"
Earlier this year, Elsevier announced that it had awarded nearly $600,000 to academics from applications submitted in 2007. A total of 13 institutions won their part of funds from a total of 150 applications received by the organisation.
"Our great winners are recognised for their efforts enabling talented individuals from diverse backgrounds to develop successful careers, maximising the benefit to science and society" said Ruth.
Tuesday 26 August 2008
TES and social networking
Interesting new research has emerged from an unlikely source around the use of enterprise social networking. The Times Education Supplement's publisher TSL Education released new research from a larger study snappily titled The Digital Staffroom: How Social Networking and resource sharing are transforming teaching, showing that online collaboration could save 14.3 million teaching hours a year by 2012.
The survey of 5000 teachers found that TESconnect, a newish social network and resource sharing platform for teachers, has benefited the community by allowing teachers to come together and share their lesson plans. Seems quite trivial, but to put it in perspective, the research said TESconnect users save an average of 31 minutes in preparation time a lesson by downloading existing resources.
Of course, the lessons learnt here - if you pardon the pun - can be applied outside the teaching sphere to most organisations. Marti Harris of Gartner told me the pharmaceutical industry is big on this kind of thing, as a way for professionals in this field to share information and so on. What's so useful about social networking platforms when applied to the enterprise space is that they provide a formal enough structure for knowledge management and the sharing of ideas, but are flexible and loosely structured enough that members don't feel restricted in any way.
As she mentioned, this kind of collaboration could be done by email or in a content management type way, but to do it via a social network is much more natural and likely therefore to encourage better results. And this is true whether it's being used internally within an organisation, in a customer-facing way, or cross-organisationally, as with the TES example.
Of course some organisations will fear letting their employees loose on something that is not yet fully proven in the enterprise space. Security concerns and privacy issues are real and must be addressed before you'll want to embark on a project similar to TESconnect. It's a fascinating area of growth though and is likely to take off in particular as a new generation of graduates enter the workforce, who have grown up using Facebook et al. Harris boldly predicted that elements of social software will become part of our desktop productivity suite before long - it will be interesting to see if she's right.
The survey of 5000 teachers found that TESconnect, a newish social network and resource sharing platform for teachers, has benefited the community by allowing teachers to come together and share their lesson plans. Seems quite trivial, but to put it in perspective, the research said TESconnect users save an average of 31 minutes in preparation time a lesson by downloading existing resources.
Of course, the lessons learnt here - if you pardon the pun - can be applied outside the teaching sphere to most organisations. Marti Harris of Gartner told me the pharmaceutical industry is big on this kind of thing, as a way for professionals in this field to share information and so on. What's so useful about social networking platforms when applied to the enterprise space is that they provide a formal enough structure for knowledge management and the sharing of ideas, but are flexible and loosely structured enough that members don't feel restricted in any way.
As she mentioned, this kind of collaboration could be done by email or in a content management type way, but to do it via a social network is much more natural and likely therefore to encourage better results. And this is true whether it's being used internally within an organisation, in a customer-facing way, or cross-organisationally, as with the TES example.
Of course some organisations will fear letting their employees loose on something that is not yet fully proven in the enterprise space. Security concerns and privacy issues are real and must be addressed before you'll want to embark on a project similar to TESconnect. It's a fascinating area of growth though and is likely to take off in particular as a new generation of graduates enter the workforce, who have grown up using Facebook et al. Harris boldly predicted that elements of social software will become part of our desktop productivity suite before long - it will be interesting to see if she's right.
Friday 22 August 2008
Criminal data loss
On the 25 June 2008, the Cabinet Office decreed that all government departments would have to encrypt important information held on discs, USB sticks or laptops in its wide ranging review of security practices. This conclusion could be either seen as a sensible approach to managing the vast data government holds or, less charitably, a statement of the obvious.
If it were a statement of the obvious, it wasn't quite obvious enough. Data handing procedures in government: final report doesn't seem to have been read, or understood, or acted upon by the Cabinet Office's colleagues at the Home Office or by suppliers to the Home Office. Less than two months after the tome hit the streets, the UK government is once again mopping up after at another hugely embarrassing loss of data.
Back in February I wrote on this blog. Data loss has become a running story over the last few months. Not so much is the question "Has there been a data breach?" more a case of "Who now?"
And that "Who now?" question keeps being repeated. It is hard to think of a government department which hasn't mislaid data. There is something of a routine to all this: government department confesses to the latest cock up. This is followed by emerging of embarrassing details. Opposition politicians express their outrage, experts express their opinions and inquires are set in train. And then another data loss comes to light (repeat above).
In this latest example, my thought processes go like this: so at one stage the data on 84,000 criminals was encrypted, that's good. And then it was decoded, well OK maybe that was necessary so the data could be used. Then the decoded data was put on a memory stick. At this point I want to shout: "What did you do that for?"
The Times reported this morning that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was furious. Who can blame her? The BBC reported that PA Consulting has searched its premises and looked at CCTV recordings in an attempt to recover the missing memory stick. If the security guys and gals at PA start by questioning everyone who has a pocket, wallet, handbag or briefcase that should narrow it down. Unbelievable (again).
If it were a statement of the obvious, it wasn't quite obvious enough. Data handing procedures in government: final report doesn't seem to have been read, or understood, or acted upon by the Cabinet Office's colleagues at the Home Office or by suppliers to the Home Office. Less than two months after the tome hit the streets, the UK government is once again mopping up after at another hugely embarrassing loss of data.
Back in February I wrote on this blog. Data loss has become a running story over the last few months. Not so much is the question "Has there been a data breach?" more a case of "Who now?"
And that "Who now?" question keeps being repeated. It is hard to think of a government department which hasn't mislaid data. There is something of a routine to all this: government department confesses to the latest cock up. This is followed by emerging of embarrassing details. Opposition politicians express their outrage, experts express their opinions and inquires are set in train. And then another data loss comes to light (repeat above).
In this latest example, my thought processes go like this: so at one stage the data on 84,000 criminals was encrypted, that's good. And then it was decoded, well OK maybe that was necessary so the data could be used. Then the decoded data was put on a memory stick. At this point I want to shout: "What did you do that for?"
The Times reported this morning that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was furious. Who can blame her? The BBC reported that PA Consulting has searched its premises and looked at CCTV recordings in an attempt to recover the missing memory stick. If the security guys and gals at PA start by questioning everyone who has a pocket, wallet, handbag or briefcase that should narrow it down. Unbelievable (again).
Thursday 21 August 2008
How well is Open Access material cited?
In recent weeks the preliminary results from a study carried out at Cornell University has shown that while research made freely available online by its author is accessed more, the Open Access material is not actually cited in greater numbers.
In case you didn't see this first time around, the study (Author-choice open access publishing in the biological and medical literature ) of 11 scientific and medical journals examined 11,000 articles published through the open access model. The abstract says (in part) it wanted to "analyse the positive and significant open access effects".
The findings have received some criticism not least because the study still has a number of years left to run. OA proponent, Peter Suber highlights some of these criticisms about the study's initial results here.
The next issue of IWR will examine the issues surrounding the findings a bit further. Tracey Caldwell has been busy speaking to both sides of the debate, including one of the study's authors Phil Davis. In the Scholarly Kitchen site this week, Davis said that he hoped readers didn't think he was "advocating against an author-choice program', going on to say 'scientists should understand that open access may not buy them more citations". The whole post is here.
In case you didn't see this first time around, the study (Author-choice open access publishing in the biological and medical literature ) of 11 scientific and medical journals examined 11,000 articles published through the open access model. The abstract says (in part) it wanted to "analyse the positive and significant open access effects".
The findings have received some criticism not least because the study still has a number of years left to run. OA proponent, Peter Suber highlights some of these criticisms about the study's initial results here.
The next issue of IWR will examine the issues surrounding the findings a bit further. Tracey Caldwell has been busy speaking to both sides of the debate, including one of the study's authors Phil Davis. In the Scholarly Kitchen site this week, Davis said that he hoped readers didn't think he was "advocating against an author-choice program', going on to say 'scientists should understand that open access may not buy them more citations". The whole post is here.
Monday 18 August 2008
Is Web 3.0 coming?
The problem with writing about technology is that in most cases the vendors we talk to, the products we cover and the trends we predict are quite a long way from reality. Not that organisations today won't eventually catch up, but only a handful of first-movers will actually be reading our pieces and seriously thinking about investing in product x.
I've covered the semantic web in quite a lot of detail before, but it's always been at a very hypothetical level - difficult to get past concepts and cement it in reality. Well, according to John Davies, head of next generation web research at BT, that is about to change. The last 12 to 18 months has seen a flurry of activity among firms as they try to apply semantic web technology to solve business problems and improve efficiency, make more money and so on.
Now the RDF and OWL ontology languages have been firmly established by industry body the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) we could be on the cusp of seeing real world applications of the technology. Yahoo for example recently announced its support for the semantic web with a new project called Search Monkey. The search giant will be asking web site providers to make available more structured data so that the firm can present it in a less random way. According to Davies in trials search enhanced by this technology recorded a 15 per cent increase in relevancy. It could be the boost Yahoo needs to challenge the mighty Google, which has so far stayed pretty quiet about semantic web standards, although you can be sure that this won't remain the case for very long.
Organisations can also use the technology internally to great effect, for example in intranets - it could boost knowledge management initiatives by enabling people to reach the information they need quickly. It could also help in information integration projects across multiple siloed databases, said Davies.
The great and good from the semantic web community will come together in Vienna for the European Semantic Technology Conference. It will be interesting to find out exactly how much of the audience is composed of business leaders and how many are academics - it could give us a telling insight into exactly how far we are from widespread use of the technology.
I've covered the semantic web in quite a lot of detail before, but it's always been at a very hypothetical level - difficult to get past concepts and cement it in reality. Well, according to John Davies, head of next generation web research at BT, that is about to change. The last 12 to 18 months has seen a flurry of activity among firms as they try to apply semantic web technology to solve business problems and improve efficiency, make more money and so on.
Now the RDF and OWL ontology languages have been firmly established by industry body the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) we could be on the cusp of seeing real world applications of the technology. Yahoo for example recently announced its support for the semantic web with a new project called Search Monkey. The search giant will be asking web site providers to make available more structured data so that the firm can present it in a less random way. According to Davies in trials search enhanced by this technology recorded a 15 per cent increase in relevancy. It could be the boost Yahoo needs to challenge the mighty Google, which has so far stayed pretty quiet about semantic web standards, although you can be sure that this won't remain the case for very long.
Organisations can also use the technology internally to great effect, for example in intranets - it could boost knowledge management initiatives by enabling people to reach the information they need quickly. It could also help in information integration projects across multiple siloed databases, said Davies.
The great and good from the semantic web community will come together in Vienna for the European Semantic Technology Conference. It will be interesting to find out exactly how much of the audience is composed of business leaders and how many are academics - it could give us a telling insight into exactly how far we are from widespread use of the technology.
Sunday 17 August 2008
A question of timing
Two conversations this week set me thinking about company information.The first discussion was with a finance director whose company had just posted some semi-decent results. The results partly covered the time before the credit crunch really started to bite. He was moaning slightly because the City had discounted the decent figures (and so the share price) his company had produced. The City analysts- despite his assurances to the contrary - were worried what the credit crunch was going to do to the company's performance for the next set of figures. When there is so much general gloom around we can all get enveloped in the fog of despond.
A day or two later another conversation about information, this time with some professional information providers. Company information in the UK relies heavily on statutorily posted data which is then taken, sliced, diced and generally analysed in whatever way you want. This is a highly sophisticated, quality-driven and established business model in the UK and is one of those generally unsung activities that underpins a successful modern knowledge-based economy. However even the information providers were worrying, not about the quality of the data which they had to work with, but with its timeliness. In a fast changing environment which we have witnessed recently, commercial conditions are highly volatile. The problem is how do we cope with this volatility? The idea of quarterly reporting as practiced by global corporations for most companies is complete overkill. On the other hand basing decisions on financials that are months if not years old, on the off-chance that they are still relevant today could be a dangerous game.
A day or two later another conversation about information, this time with some professional information providers. Company information in the UK relies heavily on statutorily posted data which is then taken, sliced, diced and generally analysed in whatever way you want. This is a highly sophisticated, quality-driven and established business model in the UK and is one of those generally unsung activities that underpins a successful modern knowledge-based economy. However even the information providers were worrying, not about the quality of the data which they had to work with, but with its timeliness. In a fast changing environment which we have witnessed recently, commercial conditions are highly volatile. The problem is how do we cope with this volatility? The idea of quarterly reporting as practiced by global corporations for most companies is complete overkill. On the other hand basing decisions on financials that are months if not years old, on the off-chance that they are still relevant today could be a dangerous game.
Wednesday 13 August 2008
Debating the future of Higher Education
Last week a spokesman from Department for Innovation Universities and Skills (DIUS) got in touch to draw my attention to the ongoing Higher Education Debate his department is currently promoting. Back in February the Secretary of State. John Denham called for interested parties to get involved in developing a framework for the future of UK HE.
To be more precise, that involves determining the needs employers as well as students for the next 10 to 15 years. As well as those parties already involved in the process the DIUS say they want to hear the views of as many interested parties as they can.
At the moment JISC are lending a hand by providing a platform for views to be expressed on their JISC Involve blog.
Judging by the amount of responses up there they could do with some more thoughts from the experts, for those that have an interest, I guess that means you
Issues up for discussion are as follows:
• Part-time studies in Higher Education
• Demographic challenge facing Higher Education
• Teaching and student experience
• International issues in higher education
• Intellectual property and research benefits
• Academia and public policy making
• Research careers
• Understanding institutional performance
• Higher Education in General
IWR will follow this closely and let you know what the consultation decides in autumn once everyone has had their chance to speak.
To be more precise, that involves determining the needs employers as well as students for the next 10 to 15 years. As well as those parties already involved in the process the DIUS say they want to hear the views of as many interested parties as they can.
At the moment JISC are lending a hand by providing a platform for views to be expressed on their JISC Involve blog.
Judging by the amount of responses up there they could do with some more thoughts from the experts, for those that have an interest, I guess that means you
Issues up for discussion are as follows:
• Part-time studies in Higher Education
• Demographic challenge facing Higher Education
• Teaching and student experience
• International issues in higher education
• Intellectual property and research benefits
• Academia and public policy making
• Research careers
• Understanding institutional performance
• Higher Education in General
IWR will follow this closely and let you know what the consultation decides in autumn once everyone has had their chance to speak.
Monday 11 August 2008
Google stakes its claim
The enterprise search war appears to be hotting up, as analysts and commentators said it would. Google is making serious moves in this area. Not that it hasn't been focused before - but its new Google Search Appliance could have the incumbents feeling a little concerned.
The latest GSA can now allow organisations to search up to ten million documents with the same box. Previously this figure was just three million and firms wanting to index more documents had to cluster several boxes together. The search giant is also taking its experience in the consumer space and transferring it to the enterprise sphere. So Google Alerts, for example, is available with the new GSA - a handy feature to notify users if a specific document or topic of interest appears. It's actually the perfect example of consumer tech bleeding into the enterprise.
Other useful features include greater personalisation functionality - allowing administrators to bias search results according to user group, so that for example sales documents are more likely to appear at the top of a search if you're in the sales team. And there is advanced biasing technology to enable the weighting of results according to the corresponding document's metadata, such as who the author is.
Basically, Google is beginning to put features in its enterprise search products that are likely to appeal to large organisations in helping to boost worker productivity and ultimately improving the bottom line. While the feature set of the large incumbent search vendors may be more extensive, the ease-of-use and implementation factors must be weighed up, as must the fact that in many implementations not a lot of the products' functionality ends up actually being used.
Interestingly, I spoke to Geoff Brash, co-founder of site search firm SLI Systems recently, who was keen to impress that enterprise search is not just about searching documents behind the firewall. Although to many that's exactly what it involves, there is a wealth of information on the other side of the corporate firewall including knowledge bases and product catalogues that may be relevant to peoples' roles and need indexing.
Tellingly, Brash also admitted that "in the search space the problem hasn't been solved, not by Google or us". In other words I guess, results can still be a bit hit and miss. Google's new features on personalisation and metadata bias are just one way the vendors are slowly getting there, but there is a long way to go yet.
The latest GSA can now allow organisations to search up to ten million documents with the same box. Previously this figure was just three million and firms wanting to index more documents had to cluster several boxes together. The search giant is also taking its experience in the consumer space and transferring it to the enterprise sphere. So Google Alerts, for example, is available with the new GSA - a handy feature to notify users if a specific document or topic of interest appears. It's actually the perfect example of consumer tech bleeding into the enterprise.
Other useful features include greater personalisation functionality - allowing administrators to bias search results according to user group, so that for example sales documents are more likely to appear at the top of a search if you're in the sales team. And there is advanced biasing technology to enable the weighting of results according to the corresponding document's metadata, such as who the author is.
Basically, Google is beginning to put features in its enterprise search products that are likely to appeal to large organisations in helping to boost worker productivity and ultimately improving the bottom line. While the feature set of the large incumbent search vendors may be more extensive, the ease-of-use and implementation factors must be weighed up, as must the fact that in many implementations not a lot of the products' functionality ends up actually being used.
Interestingly, I spoke to Geoff Brash, co-founder of site search firm SLI Systems recently, who was keen to impress that enterprise search is not just about searching documents behind the firewall. Although to many that's exactly what it involves, there is a wealth of information on the other side of the corporate firewall including knowledge bases and product catalogues that may be relevant to peoples' roles and need indexing.
Tellingly, Brash also admitted that "in the search space the problem hasn't been solved, not by Google or us". In other words I guess, results can still be a bit hit and miss. Google's new features on personalisation and metadata bias are just one way the vendors are slowly getting there, but there is a long way to go yet.
Friday 8 August 2008
In search of a competitive edge
Corporates appear to be sold on the idea of Web 2.0. More than three-quarters of executives who responded to a McKinsey survey say they plan to maintain or increase their investments in technology trends that encourage user collaboration, such as peer-to-peer networking, social networks, and web services.
More than half say they are pleased with their past internet investments, though some regret not boosting their own capabilities to exploit technology. So there are still people out there who ask their secretaries to print out their emails. Surely not.
Anyway it will be interesting to see how the results of the McKinsey survey contrast with research due out later in the year by TFPL and the Edinburgh-based Napier University School of Computing.
TFPL's Melanie Goody says that the idea of the research is to look at the risk and opportunities of social networking tool in the business market. At the moment most of what we think we know about the impact of social computing comes from anecdotal evidence, although last year the British Computer Society (BCS) estimated that £130m a day is being lost due to employee engagement with social networking sites.
The TFPL/Napier research (results in the autumn) is designed to look at the use of social tools such as Facebook, blogs and microblogs, plus more formal collaborative platforms such as Sharepoint (in which TFPL has a particular interest).
Out of the research it may be possible to start to formulate policies on acceptable use, workplace bullying and damage to corporate brand. Of particular interest to information professionals are subjects such as corporate confidentiality and the archiving of valuable employee exchanges which has to date received little attention.
Enterprises still have a lot to learn about web 2.0 and its role in the work environment. While there may be opportunities there has been a lot of focus on the downside risks. The McKinsey survey talks about the possibility of these technologies providing a sustained competitive edge. If that is the case then businesses will definitely be interested.
More than half say they are pleased with their past internet investments, though some regret not boosting their own capabilities to exploit technology. So there are still people out there who ask their secretaries to print out their emails. Surely not.
Anyway it will be interesting to see how the results of the McKinsey survey contrast with research due out later in the year by TFPL and the Edinburgh-based Napier University School of Computing.
TFPL's Melanie Goody says that the idea of the research is to look at the risk and opportunities of social networking tool in the business market. At the moment most of what we think we know about the impact of social computing comes from anecdotal evidence, although last year the British Computer Society (BCS) estimated that £130m a day is being lost due to employee engagement with social networking sites.
The TFPL/Napier research (results in the autumn) is designed to look at the use of social tools such as Facebook, blogs and microblogs, plus more formal collaborative platforms such as Sharepoint (in which TFPL has a particular interest).
Out of the research it may be possible to start to formulate policies on acceptable use, workplace bullying and damage to corporate brand. Of particular interest to information professionals are subjects such as corporate confidentiality and the archiving of valuable employee exchanges which has to date received little attention.
Enterprises still have a lot to learn about web 2.0 and its role in the work environment. While there may be opportunities there has been a lot of focus on the downside risks. The McKinsey survey talks about the possibility of these technologies providing a sustained competitive edge. If that is the case then businesses will definitely be interested.
Wednesday 6 August 2008
Six point six degrees of separation
The results from a Microsoft study into the relationships between users of its MSN messenger service have shown that the theory of there being six degrees of separation between any two given people on the planet is actually not that far off. By their calculations it's more like 6.6. Even so, I still find it incredible; especially considering the original theory is close to 100 years old and the hypothesis has been notoriously difficult to test.
From a sample of 30 billion instant messages the researchers took messages between a pair of unnamed users as a link and then compared how the 180 billion separate pairs of users in their database were connected. It's a fascinating piece of research which only reinforces the importance and relevance of social networking. It highlights where this element of both professional and personal life is heading.
On a rather darker side to net behaviour, I also have to recommend this article
on trolling that ran in the New York Times earlier in the week. 'trolling' or 'trolls' is the name given to users of online communities who post off-topic and/or inflammatory comments, they can be the bane of both the webmaster and regular members of online communities. It is something that risks pervading any social network.
The NYT's story is a thorough examination on how the anonymity the net can offer us also blurs the boundaries of what is acceptable online to what would never be in the real-world. It's a must-read for anyone who has ever posted online and gives a glimpse into the world of the most voracious of those trolls out there.
The reason I mention any of this in the blog today is the news that Lori Drew, the mother accused of driving a teenager girl to suicide by using a false identity to conduct a bullying campaign via MySpace, is to be charged under Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Public Citizen groups are campaigning against this move (although not for Drew's sake). They argue, that if she is convicted there could be significant implications for anonymous usage online.
In order to overcome such problems, such as trolling or cyber-bullying, should we consider being more open or consistent about our real identities? I don't know the full implications for going down that route.
Comments of course are welcome.
From a sample of 30 billion instant messages the researchers took messages between a pair of unnamed users as a link and then compared how the 180 billion separate pairs of users in their database were connected. It's a fascinating piece of research which only reinforces the importance and relevance of social networking. It highlights where this element of both professional and personal life is heading.
On a rather darker side to net behaviour, I also have to recommend this article
on trolling that ran in the New York Times earlier in the week. 'trolling' or 'trolls' is the name given to users of online communities who post off-topic and/or inflammatory comments, they can be the bane of both the webmaster and regular members of online communities. It is something that risks pervading any social network.
The NYT's story is a thorough examination on how the anonymity the net can offer us also blurs the boundaries of what is acceptable online to what would never be in the real-world. It's a must-read for anyone who has ever posted online and gives a glimpse into the world of the most voracious of those trolls out there.
The reason I mention any of this in the blog today is the news that Lori Drew, the mother accused of driving a teenager girl to suicide by using a false identity to conduct a bullying campaign via MySpace, is to be charged under Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Public Citizen groups are campaigning against this move (although not for Drew's sake). They argue, that if she is convicted there could be significant implications for anonymous usage online.
In order to overcome such problems, such as trolling or cyber-bullying, should we consider being more open or consistent about our real identities? I don't know the full implications for going down that route.
Comments of course are welcome.
Monday 4 August 2008
ECM under the hammer again
A few weeks ago, (or was it months, well, time flies in IT journalism) I wrote about enterprise content management and the need for a more accurate term to describe the myriad technologies that are so frequently lumped in under the one banner. Alan Pelz-Sharpe of independent analyst firm CMS Watch and Ben Richmond of consultancy The Content Group both argued that the term is confusing for buyers as it misleads them into believing an ECM product can truly meet all their "content management" needs. The problem, of course, is that ECM can be used to mean anything from records or document management to email management and business process management.
Well, now web content management firm Interwoven has added to the clamour, as vice president of Emea, James Murray, told me the other day that the term needs to be "exploded". By that I think I don't think he meant packed with dynamite and semtex, covered with paraffin and then set light to. No, rather he meant broken down into its individual elements. It's hard not to agree with this argument - while there is a certain responsibility on the part of the customer or IT buyer to do their research and shop around etc, the vendors up until now have not made it easy by taking such a siloed approach to ECM.
Talk to EMC Documentum about content management solutions and you'll get a very different idea about what they're capable of than if you went to OpenText, for example, or Alfresco. It's heartening in a way that Interwoven also wants clarification on the term, although I guess it's going to benefit a firm primarily in the WCM space, as they are, to clear up this confusion. There is also a perception that WCM is like content management for the web, but it really isn't. As Murray told me, it's now more about consumer behaviour - giving your customers what they want and creating good web experiences. Ultimately this is going to increase revenue, and it could be the smallest change to a site that enables this.
Interwoven has been a bit ahead of the game then in snapping up web optimisation firm Optimost last year. The firm specialises in technology that allows multi-variant testing; ultimately this enables marketing dudes to make a number of choices about how they want a site to look and feel, and then see how successful each variation would be - taking the guess work out of the whole process.
Well, now web content management firm Interwoven has added to the clamour, as vice president of Emea, James Murray, told me the other day that the term needs to be "exploded". By that I think I don't think he meant packed with dynamite and semtex, covered with paraffin and then set light to. No, rather he meant broken down into its individual elements. It's hard not to agree with this argument - while there is a certain responsibility on the part of the customer or IT buyer to do their research and shop around etc, the vendors up until now have not made it easy by taking such a siloed approach to ECM.
Talk to EMC Documentum about content management solutions and you'll get a very different idea about what they're capable of than if you went to OpenText, for example, or Alfresco. It's heartening in a way that Interwoven also wants clarification on the term, although I guess it's going to benefit a firm primarily in the WCM space, as they are, to clear up this confusion. There is also a perception that WCM is like content management for the web, but it really isn't. As Murray told me, it's now more about consumer behaviour - giving your customers what they want and creating good web experiences. Ultimately this is going to increase revenue, and it could be the smallest change to a site that enables this.
Interwoven has been a bit ahead of the game then in snapping up web optimisation firm Optimost last year. The firm specialises in technology that allows multi-variant testing; ultimately this enables marketing dudes to make a number of choices about how they want a site to look and feel, and then see how successful each variation would be - taking the guess work out of the whole process.
Friday 1 August 2008
Plane silly
Here's a timely reminder for all those high flying company executives who are off on holidays and can't quite tear themselves away from the thrill of work. As you pack the laptop or the BlackBerry ("Honestly darling I probably won't even switch it on and certainly not when the kids want to play") say to yourself: "Nearly 4,000 laptops go lost or missing in Europe's major airports every week." No, not a figure made up by a desperate hack in the midst of a silly season but the headline finding from Ponemon Institute for Dell. This statistic summons up images of piles of laptops strewn around arrivals and departures halls like so much modern art. How do we manage to lose so many?
And while the amount of kit that is getting mislaid is mind boggling, equally astonishing is that fact that the research claims that nearly half of the professionals surveyed take no steps to protect the data in the event of a loss or theft. Maybe that would be OK if the only information on there was the holiday packing list but nearly half reckon they keep confidential information on their laptops. It is hard to assume those two halves don't overlap so a fair amount of important info is sculling around the world's airports unprotected. The other astonishing statistic unearthed by this research is that 57% of the 3,300 laptops in the eight largest airports that end up in lost and found departments are never reclaimed. Is that because people want an excuse for a nice upgrade or maybe we're all too cynical to believe that something that is once lost can ever be found?
Whatever the lesson from all this is plain. While business travellers clearly need to carry the kit, if you are off on holiday think twice before you haul that laptop into the hand luggage. They'd be much safer locked away in the office and you would definitely have a better holiday. Enjoy.
And while the amount of kit that is getting mislaid is mind boggling, equally astonishing is that fact that the research claims that nearly half of the professionals surveyed take no steps to protect the data in the event of a loss or theft. Maybe that would be OK if the only information on there was the holiday packing list but nearly half reckon they keep confidential information on their laptops. It is hard to assume those two halves don't overlap so a fair amount of important info is sculling around the world's airports unprotected. The other astonishing statistic unearthed by this research is that 57% of the 3,300 laptops in the eight largest airports that end up in lost and found departments are never reclaimed. Is that because people want an excuse for a nice upgrade or maybe we're all too cynical to believe that something that is once lost can ever be found?
Whatever the lesson from all this is plain. While business travellers clearly need to carry the kit, if you are off on holiday think twice before you haul that laptop into the hand luggage. They'd be much safer locked away in the office and you would definitely have a better holiday. Enjoy.
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