Go and see this picture which is one of the result of the study

http://www.backbonemedia.com/blogsurvey/9-corporate-blogging-cult-divide-diagram.htm

you can also download the pdf full study from

Backbone Media, Inc at http://www.backbonemedia.com.

Worth reading it

here is a copy for my own convinience

I like it!

Rawn Shah is developerWorks' Community Editor focusing on how to develop greater interaction between IBM DeveloperWorks members through the many community services they have such as blogs, forums, user groups, wikis and other services.

I am blogrolling his blog!

Usually, at least it's what we do with our enterprise global program New², we have a contest of the best initiatives for the company program.

This is a good practice because it enables to map what the company has achieved and also provide recognition to the individuals who are the most commited to the company change.

The problem with this setting, is that we are rewarding past efforts and not funding initiative who may make change happen more drastically.

We should have another complementary setting: a directory of just starting initiatives.

How this list of "Promishing initiative for the program" is "managed" and the interaction it may creates (like this people may participate to some of those initiatives, as they are known in a central directory) needs to be carrefully designed.

It should allows for emergence and in the mean time provide the right level of quality the company program is expecting...

A good overview from Jörg Beringer head of xApp at SAP. They recognize key features of collaboration:

• Goal-Directed Collaboration
• Embedded Collaborative Services
• Collaborative Patterns
• Connecting Knowledge

What is the most interesting is the recognition of various Collaboration patterns

• Private networks that reflect the personal relationships of one person to other people
• Work groups that are set up to achieve a common goal
• Communities that consist of a loose association of people sharing one common interest

The article is there

I don't know how far SAP is going on this path to deliver new products and services, but it's worth going to SDN (SAP Developpers Network) knowledge place, one can find integration of:

• Forums
• Blogs (from SAP people and from people outside SAP)
• Documentation about SAP products and services 
• A search capability with a good taxonomy
• I haven't seen collaboration rooms, but it may be there.

You can go there.

They have even implemented an "à la passeport" SSO mechanism.

http://dashtracker.com/

Microsoft Vista is for next year 2006. Google Desktop V2 is available, even if localized version are still in Beta and are not fully bug free.

Other technologies are already available but may have trouble to sustain the race with big competitors like Microsoft, Google and the like.

It’s sure that we are really at the brink of this new technology development. The biggest issue is then about deployment: one could kill this technology if it does not deliver the expected value due to technical issues.

The cost is then not so much on the client technology development making “awarelets”, it’s more about the trust user may loose if we don’t’ bring the expected value.

We should start now to deliver it next year as a pilot.

We have seen the impressive opportunity for this technology. They must be some roadblocks to put aside before being able to deploy such a technology.

I foresee two main issues for the deployment of this new technology:

-           Mindset about collaboration tools

-           Technological limitations

5.1.   Mindset roadblock

We are used to our toolset; it’s a change to have this new personal dashboard accepted.

It’s a technology that is going to be on the most upfront of the users: it will bring a fierce race among competitors and will tend to put in the background other user interface that used to have our flavors: the portal technology is an example. The “all user access from a browser” paradigm is aging with this technology and people having bet heavily on it are not going to let it happen…

So basically, we will have to get user acquainted with this new technology and we will need to have our technical groups buy-in. 

5.2. Technological roadblock

They the following issues with this technology:

-           Deployment of a client technology is always a problem, even if most of them are lightweight, they are still one more thing to take care: it’s an issue of support for IT deployment teams: Microsoft Vista will have an advantage compare to others.

-           Support of different platform due to lack of standardization is a source of cost and complexity

-           Network impact is also an issue: awarelets should minimize the workload on network and some server side developments can be needed to achieve that. Some architecture work will be needed in the future to have this technology even more scalable with use of digital broadcasting techniques to optimize network usage.

Today, the knowledge worker uses the following tools in his office environment:

·          Real time communication (Audio & net conferencing, instant messaging, emailing)

·          The Enterprise Asynchronous information space (Shared information spaces, intranet information media, forums and bulletin board…)

·          The public, internet based, information space

·          Personal productivity tools (Word processors, Spreadsheet, Presentations…) with document spreading into the storage unit of his personal computer

The main issue faced by the knowledge worker is the spread spectrum of human interfaces and the variability of behavior they have, which is totally independent from the importance for him.

At the same moment, a very important document, which may have a drastic impact on his activities, may be stored on a shared space but its awareness is going to be distracted by an email which is going to be just another spam consuming its precious time. And he may discover the important document one week latter or even never…

May be worth, this knowledge worker mail box is so over fill that he is not able to manage this tool anymore and he loose usage of this communication media.

Another way to think about your mailbox decease is to see it as your mobile or fixed handset: imagine you receive as many phone calls than you have emails!

Not only today knowledge worker is overwhelmed by information and he barely can do anything there, that’s our world, but he is also overwhelmed by the communication tools the enterprise put at his disposal. He becomes distracted by the communication environment he has to cope with.

Communication tools tend to become a source of inefficiency as opposed to the original goal.

There is a gap between what drives knowledge worker attention and what he needs for being an efficient actor of the various communities of the enterprise.

A personal dashboard is a tool providing monitoring and scanning capabilities to the knowledge worker.

Quantum leaps progress in scientific or technical domains has ever been made possible when the appropriate observation tooling has emerged.

For example, the microscope enabled huge progress in the medical domain, either for diagnostic of human disease than for research as soon as it has been introduced into practitioner offices and labs.

A knowledge worker nowadays can legitimately dream to use personal observation tooling which enables him:

·          To have a synthetic and just-in-time representation of the various knowledge sources built by the working communities  he is participating

·          To scan the various information sources which enables him to create the knowledge context necessary for his learning and professional experience

·          To Search for documents, news, events or people

A personal dashboard helps the knowledge worker to structure its short term activity (day to week span). Providing the appropriate information at the right time and the right pace, it’s a productivity tool that helps him structure its various action plans.

To be efficient, a personal dashboard has to be designed into the regular office tooling of the knowledge worker.

Dashboard concept is on the radar screen since more than a decade now. But the first implementations have addressed more key performance indicators than the live matter for the knowledge worker.

New software technology is now coming and supported by major players (Apple, Microsoft and Google…) and the concept of real-time awareness software has been matured by smaller companies like Serence for example.

Those are the new entrants to make it happen seriously: there is a true window of opportunity!

I am writing a Green Paper on the impact of this "new" coming sidebar technology to collaboration...

1. Enhancing collaboration with personal dashboards
2. Issues faced by the knowledge worker with today communication tools
3. Emerging next generation awareness software
4. Use cases and benefits of this new asset
5. Obstacles and the key success factors for personal dashboards
6. When this will happen?

"Un concepteur sait qu'il a atteind la perfection, non pas quand il n'a plus rien à ajouter, mais quand il n'a plus rien a enlever" - St Ex

Une phrase trouvée sur le web et attribuée à St Exupéry. Je n'ai pas vérifié, mais en tout cas je partage...

Not in the Blog sphere but a guy who says about himself:

"Theoretically, my work focuses on social learning systems.
I am trying to understand the connection between knowledge, community, learning, and identity. The basic idea is that human knowing is fundamentally a social act. This simple observation has profound implications for the way we think of and attempt to support learning."

So...