Weblog by month (June 2005)
Back in the swing
Well, once back from the conference, I zipped back to work.
And almost immediately regretted that. Oh dear.
On the plus side, a mysterious little pixie has been doing some work on DominoWiki, and even I have turned some code in! So, there will be at least one more release before I give up on the wee project: too many requests, not enough chefs.
CTC 2005: the conclusion
It’s been a good conference, and not just because the food was so great and it was based in New York City (although these factors helped a lot). For me, the inaugural Collaborative Technologies Conference didn’t deliver any magic answers, but it was an excellent way of affirming that we are on the right track in my organisation. Couple this with being able to meet some great folks, talk with others on the same page, and get some interesting insight from people like Tom Malone and James Surowiecki, and you’re on to a winner.
In all honesty, a few of the sessions I could have done without — they offered very little — but that’s par for the course at any conference. Over on Ed’s weblog we had some discussion concerning IBM’s puzzling absence from this event. I stand by my comments though. Whilst Ed seems to be focussing on the size of the conference (no more than 1,000 - 1,500 delegates I’d say), and wanted to know if any big vendors were here (Microsoft, Webex, Nortel, EMC Documentum, Avaya: all big players!), that’s kind of missing the point. The organisers reckon there was a 60:40 split between business people (i.e. CIOs, managers and so on) and out-and-out technologists. I think that’s about right, and certainly IBM missed a big opportunity to engage with those decision makers who have been making us weep over the years.
Oh well, there it is. Hopefully there will be a CTC2006, and hopefully the complete fruitloop who attended this afternoon’s financial services case study will turn up again too — she was very entertaining — who ever thought you’d hear the piercing shriek, “Mark my words! There will be bloodshed!” in a technology conference?!?
Oh yes, Flickr will be updated soon: not many pictures, but anyway... I need to get this posted between now and my flight tomorrow morning first (I refuse to pay sixteen bucks for iffy hotel web access).
CTC 2005: Tuesday evening
After the sessions yesterday, the conference organisers arranged an excellent dinner, with RSVPs received via the conference wiki in true collaborative style . The food has been amazing, way above the usual fare at these things. Anyway, tables were arranged along various birds-of-a-feather themes, and we were on the GEEC table: “Global Experts in Electronic Collaboration” (!), arranged by Michael Sampson. Indeed, Michael even has a picture for the brave...
Participants included Simon Barratt, Larry Cannell and Lars Plougmann. It was good to talk to Larry after attending his excellent presentation, Creating a Collaboration Strategy (650 Kb PDF).
Well we had fun, and indeed the GEEC table was the last one standing sitting, once we got going with the “how I became a GEEC/K” stories. A few beers followed with Messrs Barrow and Barratt. A splendid evening!
CTC 2005: Tuesday morning
James Surowiecki presented the keynote on Tuesday morning, based on his book The Wisdom of Crowds. This particular address was really good, very interesting. In summary:
He regards collaboration as a double-edged sword: organisations need to manage collaborative processes in order to derive the full benefit of the “collective intelligence” found in groups. Surowiecki cited a number of examples of this collective reasoning: for example, guess the weight stalls at fairgrounds, Google’s page rank algorithm and betting odds at the racing track. Betting odds are aligned with the concept of “prediction markets” which have been successfully used in enterprises like Siemens, HP and Eli Lilly: rather than relying on a panel of experts to make decisions and recommendations, create a diverse group of people and have them make predictions. This “bottom-up” technique of decision-making is pretty radical, and echoes the sentiments expressed by Tom Malone in his keynote on Monday. For these groups to be intelligent, Surowiecki presented three things:
- Diversity (to avoid blandness, plus diverse groups tend to out-perform single-gender groups)
- Independence of individuals (for true opinions)
- Make effective aggregation of this intelligence possible
People new to an organisation or concept know less, but have different ideas and opinions, feeding into the group. Whilst human nature generally is to be imitative, it’s crucial that individuals within the group are independent. Surowiecki picked up on the fact that influential voices aren’t necessarily a good thing: lots of people following one point of view isn’t particularly conducive to great thought. The concluding thoughts were:
- Talkativeness doesn’t equate with intelligence
- Dominance of opinion etc. doesn’t work
- The more random information sources are, the better
- Talking with like-minded people is less productive (e.g. weblogs and their regular readers... Ahem)
- Diversity is key
In the Q&A session, the internet was discussed: whilst it clearly offers amazing levels of diversity, it can also break things in this regard: mention was made of “astro-turfing” as being a real-life example of this... remember that? Finally, Surowiecki urged people to randomise their contacts with other people and their information sources: the more this happens, the more effective group wisdom will become.
CTC 2005: Tuesday, on ’phones
I may post later about the morning sessions at CTC today, because there were certainly some interesting things going on. However, I need to formulate more thoughts there, so let’s jump to the afternoon session on telephony integration etc....
A session on convergence and collaboration, specifically with a panel made up of representatives from the big VOIP vendors (Nortel, Cisco, Avaya). The session got interesting once we started off with questions from the floor, and one was “I can send email from a Mac to a Win machine... why can’t an IP phone from one vendor not work directly with another?“
The answers fluffed around the 323 standard (supported, but implemented in a slightly different way for each vendor, and therefore useless) and SIP. The Avaya representative stated that he believes SIP is the best way forward for promoting standards amongst the vendors, so we shall see... Of course, the discussion centred around how can it be advantageous from a business perspective for the big players to work together. Interoperability comes with time I suppose (see my last Monday post re youthful markets).
So I will come back to an article in Red Herring re Skype’s business model (or lack of): is this perhaps the model? i.e. “Skype Corporate” which pushes encrypted voice streams over the internet using the already defined (and fairly well supported) callto: link protocol? Who needs bleedin’ MS Smart Tags which allow calling via LCS-enabled voice systems?!?
Further reading on Skype’s model
Mitch Ratcliffe: Skype or Hype?
Russ Mayfield: Skype’s Business Model
Stewart Henshall: Writing - Talking - Writing - Talking Different
CTC 2005: Monday (part 3)
I said that the sessions were variable. Well, we attended stuff on communications dashboards and the like, integrating presence, instant messaging, voice over IP etc., etc. Which is interesting, but not something my employer is even vaguely close to. The beef I have with it all is the complete and utter lack of standards so that each vendor is concentrating on their own product line and concomitant capabilities. This is understandable given the relative youth of this market, but if the Siemens, Nortels and Ciscos of the world don’t buck up, who’s to say a small agile player won’t just come in and cut away from the lot of them? Just get some of that grass-roots support with a free end-user focussed product, and build a standard using market penetration?
Notable presenters in this session: Ed Simnett from Microsoft was very slick, but gave us an utter heap of guff all around Live Communicatons Server (LCS) technology. Apparently this can / will work on “any device” and provides presence awareness in applications.
Any device? My Mac? My Palm? Hah! And “applications”? Well, so long as they’re part of the MS Office 2003 suite I suppose.
Ttthhhhhpp.
CTC 2005: Monday (part 2)
Clay Shirky headed a panel on social software tools such as weblogs, wikis and traditional internet “conversations” When discussing the use of these tools in the enterprise, som interesting distinctions were made between them:
- Internet conversations use the “interjection” as their common unit
- Weblogs use the “post” as their common unit
- Wikis use the “page” as their common unit
Conversations are linear, with forks, and there’s no overall control of the conversation. In weblogs, the author controls the conversation, and the tone is authorial. In wikis, individual egos are diluted in favour of an editorial tone where content and consensus are king.
The key to using these tools is simplicity: the bar to entry for weblogs and wikis is set low, with a good choice of simple, inexpensive tools. Socialtext’s Ross Mayfield and Shirky both grimaced when talk turned to Sharepoint (who can blame them) and “enterprise software” in general. The message is that enterprise software is often something that is “imposed” from the top-down on workers. To this end you don’t have end-user buy-in, and the apps themselves are often unwieldy / long-winded in terms of implementation. Contrast this with the strength of wikis and weblogs: their inherent simplicity, plus the fact that users like ’em! I thought this linked in nicely with the “paradox of power” discussed earlier in the day.
Shirky is a big proponent of end users defining what gets used, that they continue to “bring in” these tools as and when they find them (and a use for them). This is all well and good, and broadly I am in agreement with the point of view, but it assumes that the legal departments (compliance, risk, IT security) will let this happen, and that your end-users are switched-on enough to do this.
CTC 2005: Monday (part 1)
Monday’s sessions were a mixed bag. The keynote address from Thomas Malone was very good, focussing on “the future of work” (closely following the tenets of his book of the same name). Malone compared the history of humanity with development in the business world thus: man in isolated hunter-gatherer groups moving to centralised kingdoms (single leader) through to more de-centralised democracies equates to small local businesses moving to large corporations and then through to outsourcing, networked organisations.
The usefulness of “group wisdom” was touched-upon with the notion of internal markets, talk of eBay sellers, and so on and so forth. This means a change in management style from “command & control” to “co-ordinate & cultivate”. Two take-aways from this session for me:
- The “paradox of standards”: that rigid standards in the right part of a system can enable more flexibility & decentralisation (the example given was the internet protocol (IP) which forms the basis for everything working together on the internet).
- The “paradox of power”: that sometimes the best way to gain power is to give it away e.g. Linus Torvalds and Linux.
A great video was shown to demonstrate the “wisdom of crowds” in which a lecture audience controlled a flight simulator using wands en masse. It worked! We do more on this wisdom on Tuesday...
CTC 2005: Real-time conference ’blogging?
Not for me. My HTML keying is way too flakey. I am taking notes though, and will update the site with summary posts, full of excellent content and pithy commentary.
Ahem. Oh, and more stuff about beer.
One thing I will say: what are IBM playing at with skipping this conference? I believe IBM Press have a booth in the products pavillion, but IBM are really missing the boat in not pushing the Workplace message at a Collaborative Technologies Conference.
CTC 2005: The 7 pillars
This conference is shaping up well. CTC 2005 starts properly tomorrow, but today was an optional tutorial day. After skipping breakfast (see yesterday’s post!), John and I walked the two miles down to Pier Sixty, the conference venue. We grabbed coffees and pastries from Ruthy’s Bakery and Café, before attending Michael Sampson’s session on “The 7 Pillars of IT-enabled Team Productivity”. As a keen reader of Michael’s site, I was already aware of this framework. However, a full day’s session exploring all seven pillars was extremely useful. This really is something tangible that you can take to the workplace and start to work with immediately. The results may not always be palatable — it’s clear that even the most switched-on organisations are missing a lot in this area — but the pillars make for an invaluable analysis tool.
The tutorial was attended by around fifteen of us, which made for a good-sized group: we could have mini break-out sessions that were genuinely productive, and we learned a lot about how all our organisations approached collaboration.
The conference features wireless internet access in all the rooms, so after sorting my recalcitrant StinkPad out (why on earth the “radio” setting default is “off” in wireless-equipped StinkPads at my place I will never understand...), I could get on to the conference wiki easily. There’s even a Flickr tag for the conference! Unfortunately I forgot my USB lead, so I won’t be uploading anything until I get back to Blighty.
We finished up at around 4pm, and decided on an impromptu trip to an Apple store. Eric, John, Michael and myself all piled into a cab, and couldn’t believe how busy the SoHo / Greenwich Village area was today — if Sunday afternoons are as crammed as this, what’s it like during the week?!?
For all of us, this was our first trip to an Apple store, and we agreed that we could see what the fuss was about: there was a real buzz about the place, and it was crammed full of people playing, talking and buying. We were particularly impressed with the (active) lecture area at the rear of the store: you don’t see that sort of thing in a retail space very often.
Anyway, after lusting over PowerMac G5s, iSights, and the rest, Mr. Barrow and I opted for a walk-about whilst Eric and Michael had to get back to the hotel. We ended up rambling from SoHo back to the Westin (Times Square) via Washington Square Gardens, Fifth Avenue, Madison Square and Broadway. There’s no substitute for walking around to really get a feel for a city, although we were a little tired at the end of this jaunt I must confess. We took pictures, laughed at the driving and generally enjoyed the trip. Notables: New York’s fire stations are tiny, the Empire State Building is amazing (but its street level entrance is curiously unimpressive) and New York has reams of fantastic buildings.
A quick stop at the hotel to dump bags, and we were out and about again. Instead of trawling down 9th, we decided to just nip up the road back to the Heartland Brewery pub. Well, if you discover a good thing... We weren’t disappointed: a good meal and great beer. I got some good pictures (I think) of Times Square by night on the way back. So far our first thirty hours in NYC have been tip-top!
Arrived
New York City. Seems like a pretty cool place to me... I was up at 5 on Saturday to make a 9am flight from Heathrow with m’colleague John. Alas, no upgrade despite smart attire and even — gasp — shaving! But no matter. The flight was pretty good, and BA’s in-flight food is easily some of the best I’ve had over the years.
We were on time into JFK, but well, that didn’t really matter in the end. We spent the best part of the next ninety minutes in the immigration queue, watching INS officials sort out the US citizens on our flight (minority), before all buggering off to lunch, leaving two officials to deal with the rest of the flight. Tsk.
Well, we had the new experience of fingerprints and mug-shots (I haven’t flown to the US since August 2001, John since 2003), and then we were off.
p>We’re staying in the Westin, right on top of Times Square, and it’s a fantastic hotel. The prices are pretty fantastic too. I’ve just glanced at the breakfast menu: a bowl of cereal will set you back nine bucks, a Starbucks coffee six. The two can then be delivered to your room with $4 delivery charge, an 18% gratuity added, plus sales tax. Bargain! Alternatively, you could just move ten yards to the Starbucks next door :o)This afternoon John and I roamed Manhattan after an excellent lunch at a micro-brew pub (spot the Englishmen abroad) up the road from the hotel, and ended up in the USS Intrepid museum on the Hudson. Very interesting it is too: a military / naval museum based within and around a WWII carrier ship. They even have a recent vintage Concorde moored up there for viewing!
This evening we met up with Michael Sampson and Eric Mack, both bearing up well from their hectic flying schedules (Michael flew in from New Zealand yesterday, and then they both whizzed over from Eric’s place in California this morning). A couple of beers and a pleasant meal followed, with some very interesting chat (kids, Notes v2, cc:mail, mainframes, Lego Mindstorm, rural New Zealand, football, Dominoblog etc., etc!). We all retired pretty early ready for the week ahead: we have our “Seven Pillars of IT” tutorial with Michael tomorrow, and then the conference kicks off Monday.
As for NYC itself, I think John and I have given it a good first go!
Introducing “Hannover”
Splendid stuff. Ed has revealed some detail about where Lotus Notes is going in his post entitled “Hannover” — announcing the next (post 7.0) version of Lotus Notes. The client looks very polished already, and I wonder how much input on the look and feel came from a recent survey IBM conducted on their web site? Certainly someone has been playing close attention to the user interface, easily the element of Notes that has been most moaned about (often with good reason).
Anyway, here’s the deal: Hannover (Notes 8) is based on the IBM managed client technology we’re already seeing as part of their Workplace Collaboration Services (WCS) offering, and it builds upon the work IBM are doing with the “Notes plug-in” for that technology. IBM expect Hannover to be released as a technology preview sometime early in 2006. This sounds achievable given how far along the line they are with the managed client. I really hope that there’s a similarly aggresive timetable for Linux and Mac users on this, once the Windoze client is out there: we need something usable dagnabbit! It’s also great to see proposed support for Activity Explorer in this client (apparently anyway, per the screenshots): that would work really well for Notes, and give this collaboration platform a real boost. I guess this means IBM must be planning on including doclink support for Activity Explorer eh! (explanation).
I wonder what this means for the “traditional” Notes client though? At one time there was talk of the Eclipse-based Notes 8 client having full feature parity with its traditional Notes client sibling. I wonder whether this is still the case, or whether the classic Notes client will be dead for Notes 8?
Anyway, kudos to the hard-working teams on this at IBM, and a big fat razz to Radicati et al.
MyEclipse
This morning, on the train, I cranked up MyEclipse to do some final tidying up on the first cut of me lovely wee WAR file, only to find that my trial period of thirty days had expired. Well, it’s testament to the usefulness of this bit of kit that I had absolutely no hesitation in making the purchase as soon as I was in the office and on-line.
Seriously, thirty bucks for a piece of kit as good as this is an absolute steal. As good as they are, I gave up clamouring for WSAD, or RAD, or whatever the hell it’s called a long time ago — especially when I was told we have to sell our first-borns to get extra RAM installed at work. So, Eclipse, with this handy J2EE-oriented set of extras, was a shoo-in for me. I have not regretted it, and I’ve had a lot of use from it.
The application I’m currently finishing is pretty much exclusively back-end, in that whilst I coded a JSP, end users shouldn’t see it (there is a reason for this, trust me). However, it’s nice to know that with MyEclipse there’s plenty of stuff to play with concerning Struts, JSF, and so on. Bring it on!
In other news, whilst I was beavering into the night with MyEclipse on Friday, it doesn’t appear as though I missed too much with regards @media 2005: Mr. Marshall has the scoop.
On conferences
Well. My attendance at @media 2005 didn’t happen in the end. Simply too much to do once I got back in the office after my period of full-time fatherhood. A real shame, but good Lord, if I’d actually attended the conference, I wouldn’t be typing this now, I’d still be frantically working. And I don’t want to be doing that on a weekend, thanks all the same: it’s that sort of thing that led me to giving up accountancy some seven years ago in favour of IT!
So, whilst I await conference reports from a few of my colleagues (Mr. Marshall especially!), I can rest easy in the knowledge that the worst is done: yesterday, I worked a solid thirteen hour day. On top of a week in which I had already put in some fifty hours. Ooof. But it’s been worth it: my J2EE chops are gradually geting there! I also know a lot more about Java cryptography code, key stores and WebSphere than I did at the beginning of the week. Lumme.
Back to conferences. There’s one that I certainly will not be skipping soon: the Collaborative Technologies Conference 2005 in New York City. Woo hoo! I fly out on Saturday for that one, should be good. Especially as I am attending with m’colleague / partner in crime John Barrow. We are meeting up with Michael Sampson who is also presenting at the conference. Should be a good ’un.
Finally, looks as though Jens-Christian Fischer has been having lots of fun at reboot in Denmark. The conference had some pretty big-hitters speaking, and I recommend you check out this post right now. Very cool!
Marklar lives!
So it’s true. Marklar (a much-rumoured Apple project to maintain OS X on Intel as well as PowerPC chipsets) exists, and has done for the past five years! Apple have gotten sick and tired of IBM not delivering on the PowerPC chip range, so they’ve opted to move on. Per the MacWorld.com coverage of the keynote:
Widget, scripts and Java applications should work in the new environment without any conversion, said Jobs. Cocoa-based applications will “a few minor tweaks and a recompile.” Carbon-based applications require ‘a few more tweaks,’ recompiling, and “they’ll work,” said Jobs.
Wow! An interesting move, as sales are sure to drop whilst the new machines are phased in... Still, hopefully this will mean cheaper Macs: it was common knowledge that IBM were taking the piss with the price of the G4 and G5 chips. Best of all, this won’t be like the move from 68x0 to PowerPC — OS X is an entirely different beast to the old System 7 and OS 8.x architectures — and in any case, that last move was pretty painless.
