This Christmas is all about turkey and yes Twitter

It's Christmas time and most information professionals are wrapping up their data projects to spend time with their loved ones.
But professionals may still have their nerves on the market, thanks to the rise and adoption of social web and mobile computing devices and impressive broadband promises in 2009 alone.
Info pros can pat themselves on their back for helping their organisations sail through the tough economic conditions after being entrusted the task of maintaining their organisation's data management capabilities, communication activities and keeping up with technology all on a shoestring budget.
As we look to come out of this deep recession at the start of the next year, their roles will become more exciting yet crucial and challenging. It will be in the next twelve months that info pros can demonstrate how their organisations gained after allowing these professionals to integrate social media in their professional activities; how their digitisation process has helped their companies to be in sync with technological advancements and how investing in right information solutions and subscribing to the right products have given their companies an edge over competition.
But it is also in the next twelve months that businesses would fail to see impact of projects initiated by info pros. If info pros cannot tangibly showcase how much, for instance Twitter has helped their marketing and communications arm in reaching out to the public, their traditional colleagues will get only further cynical. Experts have said that social media can do wonders to businesses, but info pros must be able to quantify the benefits and have the facts and figures ready.
Likewise, if research and academic info pros are not able to justify investing in information technologies, cash-strapped institutions will feel they have "wasted" money. Also if professionals have released exclusive data and products online for free which has backfired, their organisations will feel betrayed.
Amid increased pressure in 2010 when their initiatives will start showing results, info pros need confidence and conviction to justify themselves and assure their slightly-wary organisations that all steps have indeed been in the right direction.
Gathering such information may not be daunting with today's information feeds, measuring technologies and social media.
Happy holidays and of course, happy holiday tweeting!

NLA got aggregator to remove newspaper links but nobody sure of copyright

Newspaper publishers and NLA may have won the battle against content aggregators, but can they really claim victory?
Not until copyright laws define and cover online aggregation service.
NewsNow, the UK content aggregator is set to remove links to most national newspapers after a row with the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA).
The site will pull links out of its subscription service that relates to content from titles of eight major newspaper groups - including Guardian Media Group, News International, Telegraph Media Group, Associated Newspapers and Independent News & Media- who own the NLA.
NewsNow's move comes after a debate with NLA after the agency launched a crackdown aggregators, PR agencies and all organisations that recycle links for commercial purposes. It announced of plans to claim copyright fees against organisations which share press cuttings by emailing links to newspaper articles on an industrial scale starting from January 2010.
NLA also aimed at charging web-based news aggregators who collect news headlines, make their own feeds, tailor-make it and distribute it widely to businesses and then profit from it (the B2B service providers).
This crackdown is to ensure that a typical aggregator such as NewsNow, which links to content from newspapers and provides them to business on subscription, would be expected to pay up to £10,000 as "web database license fees".
It is clear that NLA has attempted to introduce a new revenue stream at a time when newspaper publishers are losing to freely accessible information on the internet.
NLA spokesman Andrew Hughes clarified that it will not charge backdated fees and will not charge users sharing news links for free. "Our new licences only to paid-for web aggregation services, free-to-use services are unaffected. Web aggregators copy and index website content. This requires the consent of the content owner, and charging those who use website content commercially is fair and reasonable. The reason NewsNow and most other aggregators have accepted our proposals is that detailed legal advice supports our position."
NLA said that all of the major paid-for UK web aggregators except Meltwater have agreed licenses. Meltwater's resistance and NewsNow's plans to remove links than agree to pay license-fees demonstrates the reluctance in the aggregation business to pay because, according to them, their service constitutes "content-search2.
In the last few months the debate between aggregators and publishers has been whether aggregation is a search service or content copying because existing copyright law does not cover aggregation.
While NLA thinks aggregators must pay, legal experts point that circulation of hyperlinks cannot be an infringement of copyright, and that the newspapers' own 'Print 'and 'Email a Friend' icons allow any user to access the article directly, without payment.
In a report, Robin Fry of Beachcroft said: "Most businesses have abandoned the circulation of physical press cuttings, leaving it to individuals to access stories direct from the newspaper websites. The broadsheets clearly allow this on their websites but the NLA still seem to be pursuing businesses for licences which are simply not needed.
"Our aim is to demystify the situation, as we have seen an increase in enquiries from clients on this issue, who are understandably baffled by the numerous and complicated rules and fees in this area. It's quite possible for organisations to access all their press cuttings at no cost whilst staying within the law.
"The NLA has a responsibility to explain the correct legal situation to those it seeks copyright fees from - but at the moment, many are entering into licences - and possibly paying backdated 'indemnity' fees - without really understanding if these are needed for their business."
The battle will only get bitter unless a legal framework is put in place soon.

Google's absence at OI '09 was conspicuous

As the three-day Online Information 2009 conference wrapped up in London yesterday [Thursday], most information professionals in public and private sector organisations as well as the information technology professionals left the premises a little wiser on how to deal with the emerging social technologies, knowledge management, information management in recession, digitisation and preservation and even hard engineered semantic web technology.
But some were left scratching their heads too- those reluctant to take the "risky" dive into the social web, those adopting the traditional digitisation and preservation technoques, those operating on tighter budgets and those wanting more technology democracy in their workplaces.
The message came stark and clear to these reluctant professionals - you have to do it now, you have to do it fast and you have to do it right.
The professionals attended the sessions in all their sincerity, aiming to take away something effective and useful to their institutions' boardrooms. We saw it all- experts presenting their information, offering case studies and juggling questions while the information audience absorbing the information and advice, counter-arguing, questioning, agreeing and collaborating.
The closing keynote session may have already set the agenda for next year- a "Google dominated" session where experts provided insights on how Google will shape the information landscape in 2010.
In addition to the final session, many questions and discussions in individual sessions for three days too were focused on Google and that's what I want to say- Google's absense at the event was conspicuous.
While we had panelists praise as well as critisise Google and predict its move next year, at the next Online Information conference, we want to hear from the search giant about its own plans. During the post-session discussions over a few glasses of wine, I could hear some professionals expressing their frustration over predictions and not hard facts about what Google will embark on in the coming year.
And another issue that struck me was the absence of professionals who chalk out the social web policy within their organisations. Some librarians were keen to understand ways to develop a social web strategy only to find themselves full of knowledge but helpless to implement as they were not directly responsible for these strategies.
An information-explosive event, I am already beginning to think about the next OI conference where we must question experts on trends they wrongly predicted, on questions we missed to ask, on failing to spot opportunities and see more experts from internet giants who are shaping the future of online information at a lightening speed.

Will the digital economy bill backfire?

The government used the Queen's speech to introduce a Digital Bill that will "enhance UK's digital economy" by effectively tackling the copyright infringement online and improving digital infrastructure and content technologies.
Realising that rapid digital technological evolution calls for legislation that can resolve digital information issues such as file-sharing on the internet, book digitisation, internet privacy and even copyright violations on the web, the government has outlined its roadmap.
Addressing one of the most pressing concerns of the digital age, the proposed Bill aims at providing essential support for creative industries in a digital world, through proposals on online copyright infringement and changes to copyright licensing.
Through one of its primary elements - Online infringement of copyright - it will tackle widespread copyright infringement via a two-stage process. First by making legal action more effective and educating consumers about copyright online. Secondly through reserve powers, if needed, to introduce technical measures, such as disconnection.
But legal experts say the bill could bring in unexpected registration requirements and government control over online libraries and many other rights owners. They may need to register with the government, pay annual registration fees and be subject to codes of practice, backed up by criminal sanctions, if provisions regarding the control of 'licensing bodies' are brought in.
Copyright expert, Robin Fry, a partner at Beachcroft, said: "The government might have been thinking about the UK's fourteen main collecting societies - but unless there's a radical rethink any business selling rights to use copyright material could be forced to confront a new licensing regime.
He added: "The IT, information and the media industries have not yet picked up on the impact of this proposed law. There will be consternation in Soho and confusion in Shoreditch. This Bill already needs a desperate overhaul."
And the ISP association said they strongly oppose the proposals. The Bill also commits to public service content in a rapidly changing broadcasting landscape, through action on the provision of news in the nations, regionally and locally.
This illustrates the complexities of tackling copyright issues and other digital information related issues by playing catch-up. In a reactionary bid to tackle copyright concerns with new legislation, we are running a risk of chalking out hasty and sweeping rules that may, in fact, harm creativity.
The problems of mass digitisation and copyright and security must be resolved through due diligence, debates and inputs from experts working in the information industry. It must uphold the principles of existing copyright framework that is fair to creative enterprises and amend it to fit to the digital age rather than launching a new bill exclusively relating to the web. In addition, state intervention in the broadcast of news will only delay the flow of information to users.
Lastly, We have always argued on this blog that it is time to drop the silo approach. As complexities of having 27 varied copyright legislations across the EU challenge us, introducing a nation-specific bill will only double the woes of the European wide plan to address these concerns.
We don't need to be arm-twisted by the government, we need a bill that will resolve digital problems without impeding UK's digital growth and without limiting the amount of information accessed by the public.

The answer is with you, stupid

CrossKnowledge, the European expert in the remote development of leadership and management skills through new technologies, wanted to look at the social web from "every possible" angle, certain that it is the future of business, communication and information exchange. Interesting no one thought of conducting such an experiment before!
It asked the opinion of five observers from very different segments of the information sector- a publisher of web 2.0 solutions, a consultant specialising in social networks, an HR executive, a sociologist and a teacher - to study the impact of social networking on a company's strategic vision, structure and leadership.
The academic described the new forms of work organisation; another expert spoke about the impact of 2.0 applications in development practices and skills management; a third expert explained the link between tools and bu¬siness; the consultant spoke of his understanding of the impact of so¬cial networks on business; and finally the HR professional described the implementation of a tool created within a mobile phone company.
It found that the culture of exchange and openness encouraged by social networking sites enables companies to accelerate their decision-making processes, and increase their capacity for innovation and commercial productivity; social networks boost a company's competitiveness by providing it with improved responsiveness. Far more than just a technological revolution, the predicted arrival of the company as community translates above all into a cultural change.
By creating a networked organisation, social media encourage the lasting participation of employees, clients and partners, which in turn prompts reflection on both management's role in the corporate structure and the form that training takes.
That social media are about more than just technology, they're also all about combining social interaction and content creation: they use collective human intelligence, in the spirit of online collaboration. Consequently, the impact of professional networks will change the actual structure of corporate strategy.
Of course, collating such information is extremely useful for businesses and institutions that look to integrate social web in their communication strategy and allow technology democracy. But the ultimate factor that determines the direction of the social web is the user himself.
This is the beauty of interactive social web - making every user a publisher, researcher, aggregator, information provider and content generator. And he, who is empowered by the social web, must form a crucial part of such a research if we are to understand the mysterious world of web 2.0. Ask yourself why you use it, how you use it and what it has done to your personal and professional life, if you want social web explanations.

Google's Powermeter helps monitor energy and perhaps even rescues social media

Google has launched a software application in the UK that will give consumers information about their energy consumption, usage pattern and carbon footprint thereby enabling them to save both money and energy. The "opt-in" tool receives information from utility smart meters and energy management devices and provides it to customers on their screens.
Currently Google just has a deal with energy supplier first:utility in the UK. Users of other energey suppliers need to install a sensor device AlertMe Energy (for £69) to their meters and then view the data for an additional £3 monthly charges.
Powermeter provides energy information in the form of graphs on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and enables users to compare their usages and derive their average use.
However, in keeping up with users' demands for interactive tools, Powermeter aims to allow users to share their energy habits, tips and light-hearted energy-saving competitions, according to a report in the Guardian.
Google has expressed its wish to bring the social element on to the software, perhaps for a more robust uptake. But here in lies the future of interactive media - an innovative application build on the premise of providing crucial information and then building the interactive element on to it. A refreshing shift from standalone social media websites.
As rapid advances are being made in the web 2.0 tools and interactive technologies, several studies and surveys suggest that most of the user-generated content in Twitter is "banter" and that such tools are hampering people's productivity at workplaces.
Almost simultaneusly, niche and focus-group based social media applications such as Springer's The NeuroNetwork for neurology researchers and Sage's Methodspace to discuss research methodologies among others are proving beneficial in peer-to-peer information sharing, discussions and advice.
The primary function of the web - accurate information provision - was hijacked amid the launch of a slew of purely user-generated content through the latest web 2.0 tools.
Powermeter- that displays information on the web on users' customised iGoogle page brings progress in the area of information provision. It brings to our screens crucial information that is otherwise difficult to access and then builds interactive technologies around it, suggesting evolution in the mainstream social media space.

Social media technologies must do what they say

Micro-blogging website Twitter has managed to secure a "significant round of funding" from five investment firms, as was revealed through the blog post of its co-founder Evan Williams.
The new funding has reportedly come from two new investors Insight Venture Partners and T R Price, as well as its existing funders Institutional Venture Partners, Spark Capital and Benchmark Capital.
There are two problems to start with. First is that Williams was not as candid about the exact amount of investment because the investors want the deal to be a private affair. Isn't web 2.0 all about sharing information and encouraging transparent and candid conversations? Internet has liberated information and has always preached professionals to provide information. Shouldn't it apply the same rules to itself?.
Unless social media companies including Facebook - which is also known for shying away from sharing plans, projections and security measures - come out in the open, it is hard for information professionals who want to capitalise on these tools to chart out their plan or realise the potential.
Amid tight budgets, it's extremely important for marketers too to define the return on investment and unless there is more information, it is hard to define ROI. The lack of information also hinders discussion on whether the amount of investment was right in the first place. And it does not set a basis to evaluate other social media technologies.
Also presumably, Twitter has secured the funds and valued itself on the basis of its whopping 45 million users in its three-year history and expecting this to grow exponentially.
Twitter is planning to roll out adverts and even provide companies with initial insight and market reaction. But the second problem is that because information on web2.0 applications are user-generated, scattered across multiple platforms and at different times, professionals and advertisers would find it difficult to target the right information for the right set of audience.
There has to be more collaboration of content in the social media technologies before any plans to leverage on them take to the sky. And there definitely needs to be more engagement between users and social media companies.

Drop the silo approach

Two research reports on the impact of social networking and Web 2.0 tools in the workplace highlight the anxiety among experts over these issues. Suggesting identical outcomes, both reports - one from Economist Intelligence Unit on managing technology democracy in the workplace and the other study by Recommind on the use and implications of Web 2.0 tools in businesses - urge businesses to "act now and manage Web2.0, it's already late".
The reports found that even today, over 40% of senior executives in organisations said they restrict the use of such applications and have no training in place to manage the uptake of these tools by staff in the near future.
The concerns these executives raised were about security, lack of productivity, loss of information, data breaches, difficulty in preserving and accessing information and legal implications.
The moot point of discussion at both the events were about "Who takes responsibility for implementing and enforcing the company policy on Web2.0 use?"
Companies are finding it increasingly difficult to tackle the tricky issues of Web 2.0 because they acknowledge and identify its benefits in this internet age. Meanwhile, staff insist on "technology democracy".
People may be techno-savvy but they lack digital awareness and history shows that we pay a huge price for this lack of awareness. Young staff have been sacked for posting negative comments about employers or customers; public sector organisations have lost and misplaced highly sensitive information and personal data has been used for vetting future staff.
The question of responsibility is a tough and dodgy one. And the Recommind survey suggested that 70% respondents think it is IT department's responsibility, 17% said it was the legal department and the others were divided between dedicated Web 2.0 specialists in offices, team leaders and individual members of staff.
It's time to drop the silo approach. Not only does the IT department, legal team and staff need to work together, it is time individual users, application providers and regulatory services take responsibility too. Until now, the legislation and public awareness has always been catching up with technology. It is time to stop playing catch up and get even with technology.

Will technology spark the next economic crisis?

In previous decades it was the stock market crisis that brought the economy to its knees. More recently we had the sub prime mortgage doing the same to the economy. It may well be the technology in the next two decades that could spur a recession.
The social media space, internet, digitisation, virtual conferences and many more innovations are spreading at a breakneck pace. We are so smitten by latest applications that its uptake seems almost reckless. We are just as hopelessly enthusiastic as we were when there was first the widespread opportunity of dealing in stocks and shares and later on with irresistible lines credit for housing from banks.
While individuals like innovation there seems to be some caution regarding allowing "technology democracy" within companies as the research by Economist Intelligence Unit suggests. The fear is that too much of technology freedom will descend into chaos. And experts acknowledge these risks and advice companies to adopt measures for preventing the chaos.
But web stands for integrating everything. What is professional can be deemed personal and vice-versa in the social networking space. Human resource professionals are vetting people after browsing through their digital personality, professionals are finding business sensitive information on Twitter pages and journalists can find scoops and leads from inadvertent comments and feedbacks on the social media websites.
The technology stocks are going bullish and each day, the companies are unveiling massive plans of digitisation and launching online solutions, video-on-demand, state of art file-sharing, personal communication devices and applications that will empower you with real-time information updates.
While web-conferencing helps us cut our carbon footprint and mobile devices are useful to "connect on the move", too much technology dependence not just means greater information sharing, it also reassures technology providers into supplying us with the services to cater to our demands. We don't seem to give a moment's thought to the possibility of a shocking revelation of some technology gone terribly wrong. What would happen if we were told one Monday morning that all the information on Google's cloud has been corrupted or stolen?
by Archana Venkatraman

Publishers showing spine in the ebook battle

Credit where credit is due. The publishing sector deserves a pat on its back for steering the future of the books.
Acknowledging the role that ebooks and ebook readers would play within the sector, the industry is not just keeping pace with the latest technology but is, in fact, a step ahead- forming alliances, consolidating and providing users a peek into the future.
Unlike the music industry, which was forced to evolve following innovations such as the MP3s, iPods and even Spotify that changed the consumption of music, publishers are bracing themselves with new technologies and organisations such as British Library is enabling consumers "to get to grips" with the hi-tech devices that could change the way we read.
Google Books, Google's online library has agreed to add one million books for free to Coolerbooks.com, for Interead's ebook reader Cool-ER.
The search giant, along with Sony, is also supporting the open EPUB- publishing format that can conform to any e-reader, liberating the market and challenging Amazon's model of ebooks compatible only with its own reader Kindle.
While on one hand, content-access is becoming sophisticated, Harry Potter publisher has given content too, a 21st century makeover. Bloomsbury Library Online has virtual bookshelves that allows one to access books via public libraries or through internet enabled mobile phones.
However, a lot still needs to be tackled- getting more publishers publish books in ebook-friendly formats, making the devices more affordable and user-friendly, digitising old books in ebook compatible formats and even collaborating with communication devices manufacturers.
Typical problems that challenge the music industry today are online piracy and file sharing issues. The issues are so deep-rooted that it requires government intervention and severe clampdown to restrict the damage.
We need due diligence process to combat similar file-sharing issues, legal compliances and piracy within the ebook market, its impact on book-sellers and physical newspapers, otherwise well-begun would remain half done.
By Archana Venkatraman

Internet's evasive ways

Within most businesses crisis drives innovation. Within technology, business innovation leads to crisis.
Privacy crisis, IP crisis, security crisis and financial crisis are just a few conflicts to name.
Let us take the newspaper business. All was fairly well for the newspaper business until a time when consumers believed that news could be free- thanks to the internet. The feeds on Twitter page themediaisdying unfolds the turmoil in the industry in a "drip-drip" format. Newspaper publishers are seeking to revive themselves by retreating free content online.
However, such a retreat comes too late after the information explosion on the internet. The proliferating information on the internet is not easily controllable.
Newspapers that currently charge for some of its content find that the articles are accessible via Google news.
The online business model is not as simple as the selling of physical newspapers is. Some subscribers are likely to share the log-in details and the number would be too less for detection. Others would post the news stories they read online on to their Facebook and Twitter accounts to share and discuss it with friends.
The world wide web is just that - a world, wide, web that caches, tags, stores, crawls, spreads, reproduces and displays the information once it lands there.
In the world of technology, free and open source have always triumphed over pay-for and proprietary software. And the internet users think it could be the same for every business.
Ailing newspapers must simply join the bandwagon and perhaps begin to nudge the likes of Google (or broadband providers), who are gaining from consumers' free-content campaign, for support.
Meanwhile, benign consumers hope such a plan won't backfire at them.
But, by the time, a solution is devised, technology would have moved one-step ahead where consumers would prefer mobile computing and e-readers and its providers will offer complementary news services, leading to a new crisis.

Give us a newspaper revolution

And another newspaper [thelondonpaper] closes down because of falling advertising revenue. Archana Venkatraman
The scene will only get grimmer now on.
The fight for winning adverts turns bitter not just between the newspapers but also between newspapers and other consumer-facing companies and websites. Ailing airline company British Airways announced it was to sell advertising space on online boarding cards (presumably with some care- life insurance ads just before you get on a flight may not be quite the ticket). Meanwhile, property website Rightmove reported buoyant results citing its share of property advertising "grew substantially" even as advertising in traditional print media declined.
It is clear that advertisers operating on a shoe-string budget are swayed by a slew of companies with online presence that claim they can target users "more directly" than newspapers can. Companies such as British Airways step on the toes of traditional media institutions to rescue their business amid worsening economic climate.
Almost at the same time, consumers are increasingly considering news and information as something of a free-commodity and are not willing to pay for it.
So what seemed like a straight-forward and obvious business model for newspapers is turned upside down with the world wide web bringing along a slew of avenues for the advertisers and heralding a permanent gloom for the newspapers.
In case of BA and other brands, advertising will be complementary to their core revenue. Are newspapers too naïve to continue believing in advertising as the only and major source of income?
Arguably, the newspapers, with their compelling content have battled bravely with radio, television and even online news-sites and have continued to survive. But as the internet-savvy consumers crowd specific websites for booking tickets, shopping, viewing properties, and even investing their money and buying insurance, the newspapers must find an alternative to traditional advertising.
It may be hard to visualise a new revenue-earner different from advertising, but who would have thought of a "search engine" or "penicillin" in the early 1600s. Because, most times, identifying the problem is the first step for resolving a crisis.

What do you prefer: Artificial intelligence or natural stupidity?

Technology is amazing and we all love it. Only when it works and only when we have it.
When it doesn't work it is more than useless and redundant. It makes life and task more painful than it would have been without the help of "the damn thing in the first place".
Why do we loathe it so much when it goes wrong? Surely the answer is our dependence on it. For most of us it would be a "terrible day" if we forgot our mobile phones before venturing out. Make it a "dreadful day" if it was a smart-phone and one was "on the move" the whole day.
Making technology work is all equations and mathematics. A software works only if the code is right, a site is accessed only if the password is accurate. Our brains have become administrators and house-keepers. Today, we do not know the information per se, but we know where to find that information from.
It is a mobile phone's task to remember the number of our loved ones. It is the sat-nav's task to remind us where to take the next right and it is Microsoft Calendar's task to remember our appointments and "alert" us.
Let's take it a bit further- we don't really have to remember all the spellings- there is an inbuilt auto-correction tool; while searching for a phrase, we do not really need to type the whole phrase, artificial intelligence prompts us to "drag and drop", we do not need to rewrite or reword an article, there is "copy and paste".
It is all good- real time communication, blurring geographical boundaries, liberating information, empowering humankind and creating, managing and organising intellectual property and so on.
The newer and more novel the innovation, the harder we fall for it. Second-gen devices and applications are very attractive and addictive.
I am not patronising life without technology, but it would be interesting to pause and think how much we have started depending on even secondary technological devices and innovations such as faster broadband, plastic money, wi-fi, catch-up television, text-to-voice transcriber, file-sharing, social networking, digital radio, Skype, Second Life, communication devices.
It feels wiser to take pain in remembering (and forgetting) the birthdays of our loved ones genuinely than rendering information technology a more charismatic personality.
Because, sometimes, natural stupidity is more charming than artificial intelligence.

Are we a digitally-confused society?

...Or is our digital consumption, marked by a classic characteristic of jumping on the bandwagon? Asks Archana Venkatraman
On one hand, Ofcom research suggests that people are willing to give up on celebrations and routine pleasures such as meals out and holidays to hold on to communication services, if a choice has to be made. That fits in with the EC's digital competitiveness report found that two in every three Europeans under 24 years of age use the internet every day.
But almost exactly at the same time, another research report from social media analytics company Sysymos analysed over 11 million Twitter accounts and found that about over 85% of Twitter users post less than one update a day and that 21% of users have never posted a Tweet. In addition, the social networking site Friends Reunited is sold off for a fraction of what it was worth in 2005.
Arguably, the reason for the burgeoning success for Facebook as against Friends Reunited could be attributed to its free access as against a subscription model, which was eventually dispensed with. Similar trend was spotted by the EC's report where it said that a third of young people would not pay for online services such as music and video downloads.
Have we assumed that most internet services we use will remain free and that we just have to factor the hardware costs? Media baron Rupert Murdoch has just shaken this belief to its core.
We haven't yet sorted out our digital behaviour and our inability to put a value to our digital services. We embrace digital services- general search engines, social networking sites, news sites, email accounts, YouTube and numerous download sites - that are free, without assessing their real value and importance to us. We all know of people who have opened a Twitter account to obtain a desired URL before it is too late.
The real question is how many of us would actually give up on holiday and dining-out to keep Facebook and Twitter and Skype if all three were in fact subscription-based? In such a scenario, people willing to keep communication services would have to pay for the devices, internet connection and individual websites.
It is time we start putting a price on the communication technologies we use and choose more selectively. Web 2.0 has certainly revolutionised the way we live and communicate but if we do not exercise our discretion then the companies providing these services will gain revenge, either by charging or disappearing.

In the fight between Google and Microsoft-Yahoo, users win

Archana Venkatraman
On Wednesday [July 29], Microsoft and Yahoo paired up to announce a ten-year deal in the search markets. The companies announced that the partnership would improve efficiency in reaching and tracking online audience.
Together Microsoft-Yahoo will hold less than 30% of the US market share, even though it is significantly more than their individual numbers. A research firm comScore suggests that Google handles 65% of the US search market. On a global context, however, the game looks even tougher for Microsoft and Yahoo with Google having 70% of the market share. But the two companies claim the deal to be a game changer within the search market.
Through the deal, Microsoft acquires a ten-year license to Yahoo's search technologies while Yahoo sites will use Microsoft Bing as their search platform.
Professionals navel-gazing to know 'what's in there for me' may not see a radically different search experience in the short run, but the competition introduced within the sector could result in innovation, more sophisticated search technology, meaning-based content, efficient organic search and further collaboration and consolidation.
In isolation, the development may mean little to professionals, but this just marks the beginning of maturity within the digital information industry. We could see more such collaborations not only between rival companies but even complementary collaboration between search companies, social networking sites and information management companies.
As one expert told me "the future of the search is about you and me", I see it coming true.

You can't close down people

It is time to see social networking sites as just that. Networking sites. Says Archana Venkatraman
Two incidents earlier this week took the paranoia around networking tools to an absurd level. One was when MI6 chief Sir John Sawers's personal life became public when his wife innocently uploaded their holiday photographs to her Facebook account. The other was concerns expressed by UK intelligence agencies that Facebook and other social networking tools ruin the spy industry, as finding new recruits without an online trail has become nearly impossible.
In the first instance, Sawers faces a probe, and in the second, consultants are saying that having a Facebook profile is like "opening up a Pandora's box of online traceability that one can't ever truly close". The message from security experts is loud and clear - maintain a low profile at all times.
That means having no images in the public domain, or being associated with any person or organisation. What we need to understand is that while the latter is in people's control, the former is not. In today's internet age, it is hard to control information that is visible and searchable in the world wide web.
For instance, the MI6 chief was unaware of the availability of information while his wife did not consider the implications of her enthusiastic and seemingly harmless activity. Even if she had been careful with the security settings, his friends could have published the photographs and "tagged" friends' friends and so on, or he could have featured in other holidaymakers' pictures.
High profile officials must indeed have Facebook and Twitter accounts as information coming from them is fast, first hand and extremely useful. It also is important for the info pros of the future as references while documenting an event.
Instead of making them digital outcasts, they and their loved ones must be informed about the security aspects of these websites. More importantly, instead of controlling the prolific adoption of these inevitable sites, experts must advise search engines and those who run social networking sites to stop crawling through their pages for easy find-ability and to stop presenting a vast amount of information to random web search-ers.
It is the technology that has to become smarter with sensitive personal information, not people.

Talking local archives

A roadshow on preserving information in the digital age took place in York on Friday 26 June. Those who have set up the event should be congratulated. The organisers are the National Archives, the Society of Archivists and the Digital Preservation Centre. Part of the reason for the roadshow is to invite comments on the recently released consultation on Archives for the 21st century, a new draft government policy for publicly funded archives, and although the National Archives is the only one of the three to be based in London, it is good to hear that conversations are taking place all over the country and not just in Whitehall and the National Archives' Kew headquarters. As a London-based writer I know it is very easy to get a London-centric view of life. And when the consultation was first published IWR expressed the worry that the policy had already been decided and that there was a danger too much was going to be decided at the centre rather than leaving decision making over archives to local say.
The commitment to start a national conversation on the issue augurs well. Today's Digital Preservation Roadshow is the second in a series which is aiming to highlight the issues associated with preserving digital information as well as offering expert advice and cost effective practical solutions to the archives sector. Delegates were due to be told how a phased approach to digital preservation may be more manageable, particularly in a time of shrinking budgets, and identify what information needs to be kept and the main risks to it. All sounds good stuff.

Face the paradoxes

Peter Williams reports from the Library Show in Birmingham
Speaking at the Library Show, British Library chief executive Dame Lynne Brindley said there was never a better time to be a librarian. But she also said that the current period was also a little daunting, especially as librarians had to commit to a culture of continuous operational change. She advised the profession to take control of its own destiny. Speaking to an audience at the seminar programme, Brindley presented a series of paradoxes for the information profession. The paradoxes include love Google or hate Google and the issue that the Google generation students are technologically savvy but not digitally literate.
Earlier Roy Clare, the chief executive of the Museums, Libraries & Archives Council warned that some librarians still regarded marketing as a dirty word that was done by someone else and he said MLA was working hard to ensure engagement with the local community.

Tweeters and non-Tweeters

It is well worth repeating the cliché - internet has transformed our lives. Information, news, file-sharing, catch up television, blogs, entertainment and social networking. Layer upon layer, it is a world unto itself.
While this virtual world exposes us to new challenges and conflicts, it also dangerously divides our real world into separate sects.
A YouGov survey of almost 2000 adults have revealed varying attitude towards social media. While many welcomed its adoption in business, 71% respondents said teaching social media technologies such as Twitter in schools is "inappropriate".
Meanwhile, the old school of thought is still prevalent- 50% of the UK workforce are banned from using social media in the workplace- presumably for productivity reasons. Contrarily, 20% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that a corporate Facebook would be better for sharing information and collaborating on projects.
As I have always argued, the majority of respondents who were inclined towards social media in the workplace were Generation Y-ers. This reflects how the young have changed the way they communicate.
Traditional organisations must provide social media platform to its employees for sharing ideas and views and to collaborate in a medium of their choice. Social media sites are not just a means to connect or not just used to advertise the positive aspect of one's life. Today, they are beyond a mere public relations weapon of every individual.
Several Tweeters have a fan-following for their valuable information, some human resource departments vet people by tracking their social media activity. Ambitious companies have extended their online presence with the use of these tools and even promoted products and services through them.
Business social media site LinkedIn boasts of 40 million plus members. This shows the importance of these applications and the role they are likely to play in future generations' personal and professional lives. Social networking sites such as Facebook host a multitude of groups fighting for social, economic and environmental causes. And that is why, it is important to allow children familiarise themselves with these technologies which they have a great aptitude and appetite for.
What is also shocking about the survey is that 6% have admitted that they'd go as far as not taking a job if social media tools were not made available to them. Although nominal, it reflects the division in ideologies. Besides, a survey of even younger sample could provide more alarming insights.
It must be about a happy marriage- making social media technologies a tool to achieve traditional objectives- than slipping into a divided society of Tweeters and non-Tweeters.

In God we trust, in public sectors... we don't

The government has pledged to remove innocent people from the national DNA database by launching a public consultation "Keeping the right people on DNA database" early this month.
It sets out proposals to introduce "more transparent safeguards" for the individual and aims to provide a proportionate balance between protecting communities and protecting the rights of the individual.
There have been numerous debates about the compulsory DNA database with experts arguing that it is discriminatory because it has 40% of black men's DNA profiled as against just 9% of white men; that it is violation of freedom of expression and that it promotes distrust and so on.
But more than the controversial nature of the information the government holds, the fact that it exists with the government is worrying. Recently, there have been innumerable reports about the plunging public confidence in public sectors. The health care services, the councils, the police, libraries, institutions and other government departments are less trusted by the people following series of high profile sensitive data leak that jeopardised our security.
The government launched the national DNA database in 1995 with an aim to allow police store DNA profiles to help resolve crimes. And today, the UK leads the world in developing a national DNA database (profiling over four million people).
According to the government, the database has played a key role in solving criminal cases such as Sally Ann Bowman murder, convicting Steve Wright in 2008 for the murder of five prostitutes and also for proving innocence such as clearing Sean Hodgson of the death of a young woman nearly 30 years after he was wrongly imprisoned.
While we do not undermine the role of such information to help the police solve criminal cases and would like to do every bit to cooperate, we are worried about the loss of that information to a wrong set of people likely to misuse it, tamper with it and manipulate it. When in the recent past public authorities have failed to observe basis principles of security such as encrypting a disk with employee information or safeguarding anti-terrorism documents.
The issue is not so much about an invasion on right to privacy or human rights, it is in fact about data protection. We now know that privacy is long dead in this digital age. Our fear comes out of our falling confidence in the public sector organisations.

How about children hosting a history blog

A shake-up of the primary curriculum to reflect the modern times is a refreshing move writes Archana Venkatraman. But should we make information technology a material of education than a medium of education?
According to The Guardian (that has seen the "draft plans for the detailed content of learning areas" Sir Jim Rose, former director of inspection at Ofsted, is proposing for pupils), children may well have to learn blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter and spreadsheets.
Rose, in an interim report published in December last year, called for a greater inclusion of information technology in primary education.
The proposal of adding the digital media by making a host of compelling subjects within history optional is baffling.
Technology is just an enabler, it is a medium of learning and teaching rather than being an object of education itself. A detailed study of technological communications is a discipline that students opt for at a higher degree of education after comprehending their interests and preferences.
If the aim is to introduce children to the emerging technologies, then it could be done by employing technology for teaching and by encouraging its use as a tool to search, communicate, share, write and present. It is understandable that launching technology in the curriculum is long overdue but it is no more important than other aspects of education.
Children love the dynamic new media. They are technologically agile by themselves without much effort because Twitter, Google and Wikipedia invariably form a part of their day-to-day activities even more than their parents'. Wasn't there a recent report about parents being unaware of their children's browsing habits?
Information technology must be carefully introduced and woven into the curriculum without burdening the children instead of knocking another important subject off the syllabus.
Children need to know the implications of the Second World War just as much as they need the skill to blog. And let's not underestimate that they cannot hold a web-based discussion on Victorian history.

Facebook works hard to avoid losing face

Information professionals with an interest in privacy issues will be following the data trials and tribulations of social networking phenomena with some interest. The story so far goes something like this. A couple of weeks ago the company released an updated terms of service but then on February 18 decided to revert to the previous version. Why? Because Facebook has apparently received complaints from some users that revised terms appeared to imply that the company would keep personal data even if the account had been deleted. So the old terms were out back while a redrafting process took place.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg used his blog to explain what was going on. This issue has clearly caused some soul searching. Now Facebook says it is "reaching out to respected organizations to get their input" and Zuckerberg reckons that much of the language is "overly formal and protective so we don't plan to leave it there for long".
With Facebook such a dominant force in the social networking space the outcome of this episode is bound to leave its mark.
Zuckerberg wrote: "Our terms aren't just a document that protects our rights; it's the governing document for how the service is used by everyone across the world. Given its importance, we need to make sure the terms reflect the principles and values of the people using the service."
It would be interesting to know where information professionals on Facebook agree with Zuckerberg. Would privacy issues cause them to stop using Facebook or use it in a different way? Or is this just part of the price you are prepared to pay for using the tool?

Autonomy and Interwoven - a sign of things to come?

So it finally happened. Speculaors have been predicting the acquisition of Interwoven and Vignette in the ECM space for years now, and last week, UK success story and erstwhile enterprise search firm Autonomy announced it was to snap up the former in a $775 million deal. So is it a good move for the firm, and what does it say about the industry in general?
Well, it certainly makes sense for Autonomy to have plumped for Interwoven as opposed to Vignette. Interwoven's newly released fourth quarter earnings were very impressive; $69.8, or an increase of 11 per cent from total revenues of $62.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2007. And for the year ended December 31, 2008, the firm's total revenues were $260.3 million, up 15 per cent from 2007.
So financially Autonomy chose the stronger company, and if you believe chief exec Mike Lynch, the two firms' product sets and management teams are well known to each other, the vendors having shared both "customers and partnerships over the years".
So how does it fit with Autonomy's strategic vision? Pretty well, actually. The firm has been moving gradually beyond its core competence in enterprise search to become an infrastructure software provider for some time now. Its portfolio now includes video and audio analysis tools, call centre monitoring and analytics software, business process management, the hugely profitable e-discovery and archiving area, and records management. According to Ben Richmond, founder of ECM consultancy The Content Group, this latest in a long line of acquisitions is all about Autonomy becoming a mainstream ECM vendor, and with records management and BPM already under its belt, it's easy to see why.
Search and content management have always had a pretty close relationship; organisations ultimately need to be able to find the content that they have created, stored and managed, so search tools are essential to a holistic ECM platform. Now Autonomy is bringing them under one roof. It will be interesting if we see more big names getting serious about providing the other parts of the ECM stack that they have so far neglected.
But a final word of warning from Richmond: end users must "look beyond the badge" when investing in new ECM products, because if vendor 'A' buys vendor 'B', it could be years before it is able to offer truly integrated products. Microsoft and Fast, Open Text and RedDot - these are just two examples to be mindful of. Happy shopping.

ECM for greener IT?

Guess what? An effective, enterprise-wide content management strategy can make your organisation more agile, efficient and save you significant energy costs. Yes, you might already be aware of this fact, as it's fairly obvious that ditching paper, printers and copiers in favour of digital content is going to generate significant benefits for the company. But a new Gartner report seeks to shed a little more light on the specific processes you'll need to identify, which can then be improved to increase efficiency and reduce greenhouse emissions.
Now the green debate has been rumbling along for some time now, and it's probably not exactly at the top of your agenda, in fact it's unlikely it'll ever move out of the 'nice-to-have' category. But it will have to be taken seriously eventually, especially if various stakeholders start to demand to see your green credentials.
That said though, especially in these trying economic times, the biggest benefits of reviewing your content management strategy and going fully digital are the economic and efficiency gains. So what does Enterprise Content Management Strategies for Green IT actually recommend? Well, put simply it is to examine all areas of the business that currently require paper, ranging from the hardware such as printers and copiers, and the business processes which are paper-intensive.
What you should do next, according to report author Mark Gilbert, is look at how paper could be reduced in these areas, rank each project in order of how much impact they're likely to have on the business, then prioritise the most achievable and set a timeline. Simple.
Well, probably not very simple actually, but by looking for example at electronic storage of documents, this could save on the energy associated with paper manufacture and distribution, and that required to air condition large paper-storage environments. Then there are the efficiency gains to be had by, for example, switching to e-forms for the capture of electronic data.
I guess firms should be thinking of these projects not just as moving from one format to another - paper to digital - but of transitioning their processes. As Gilbert tod me, data has little value unless it's part of a process, and I would add that when this data is managed electronically it can be much more versatile, it can be used in a much nimbler way than if residing on a piece of paper. As he said: "We want to keep the people on the [digital] highway; not accomodating off-ramps to other mediums."

Financial firms must try harder

After the publicity avalanche of data breaches in 2008, you could be forgiven for thinking that public and private sector organisations have already begun to take data protection more seriously. Unfortunately, new research seems to suggest the opposite.
Now, with research-based stories, the canny journalist should always be a little sceptical. Does the surveying organisation in question have an agenda? How representative is the sample size? And what questions were they asked? These are just some of factors that could affect the degree to which we can learn from various studies. But when the source is PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the survey is of over 660 global financial institutions, it's probably worth taking notice of.
The figures, part of PwC's sixth annual Global State of Information Security study, point to a disturbingly lax approach to data security among firms which should know better. Over half said they had "no accurate inventory of where personal data for employees and customers is collected, transmitted or stored".
Given the importance of encryption to a holistic data protection strategy, it was also disappointing to see the figures from this part of the survey. Forty-one per cent said they do not encrypt data stored in databases, 52 percent do not encrypt file shares, 43 percent do not encrypt backup tapes, and 33 percent do not deploy laptop encryption. The latter is especially worrying given the growing likelihood of laptops and other digital devices to go missing from time to time, and the increasingly mobile nature of today's workforce.
But it was the attitude to third party service providers that was probably most disturbing. Fifty-one per cent of respondents said they don't require third party providers to abide by their own privacy policies, while only 45 per cent said they perform due diligence on third party companies which handle the personal data of customers and employees.
Now the risk of data going missing because of mishandling or poor controls by partners and third party suppliers is well-known now; there have been enough high profile incidents to make that clear. What is most worrying is that financial services firms are usually some of the most advanced in terms of their data security policies. Let's hope this picture isn't repeated across the board.

Notice: January Issue

Any subscribers wondering where their first issue of '09 is will have to wait a bit longer I'm afraid. The decision has been made to combine the January and February issues (similar to what we usually do with the July/August edition).
Thanks for your patience with this matter
If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact me at daniel.griffin@incisivemedia.com

More thoughts on 2009

So in my last post I might have mentioned that I'd had my fill of year prediction and round-up stories. And you might also, having probably read nothing but over the last week and a half orgy of chocolate, wine and New Year sales. But I'm afraid there's very little else in the news to talk about at this time of year, as a cursory look at the headlines in the Nationals over the last fortnight will probably attest to. So here goes another attempt to look into the future and discern a few future trends in the content management space.
Firstly, e-discovery. It's already massive in the States, thanks to the ammendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) which broadened the type of documents subject to legal discovery to include all electronically-stored information (ESI). UK companies operating in the States are also beholden to these new rules, which stipulate that word processing documents, e-mails, voice mail and instant messages, blogs, backup tapes and database files are now all subject to legal discovery laws.
Vendors like Autonomy are certainly cashing-in on the projected increase in demand for tools that help to archive and retrieve electronically-stored information. The search giant bought archiving vendor Zantaz and data capture and records management firm Meridio to make it one of the best placed to offer its customers holistic e-discovery solutions. Proactive information risk management will become increasingly front-of-mind for chief executives, especially after a few high profile court cases.
Another one to watch over the coming year is the use of social computing in an enterprise context. Now there is a train of thought that says in an economic downturn CIOs are likely to eschew those riskier projects which involve high up-front costs on as yet largely unproven technologies, and instead concentrate on keeping the lights on, and their jobs. I have probably trailed this one the most over the last few months, however, and I think there are still enough firms out there willing to invest in innovative technologies to propel this model in the corporate sphere. After all, using tools which map the key skills of each member of staff and their relationships with others in an organisation can help drive efficiency and productivity, making the firm more agile and able to respond to business change.
And one final piece of food for thought. Can 2009 be the year of mobile ECM? Well, it would definitely be the next logical step and the opportunities for boosting the efficiency of mobile workers are huge. Phones are certainly becoming powerful enough to handle such tasks, but as yet the vendor community has been rather slow to jump on board. Perhaps the problem, as with all things mobile, lies with a lack of standardisation. The proliferation of mobile devices, operating systems, browsers etc in the mobile sphere is such that ECM applications will struggle to make it in this space until someone takes a lead.