Book - Collaboration in The Cloud - OK

Collaboration in the Cloud
How Cross-Boundary Collaboration

Is Transforming Business
Erik van Ommeren Sogeti
Sander Duivestein Sogeti
John deVadoss Microsoft
Clemens Reijnen Sogeti
Erik Gunvaldson Microsoft
2009
Microsoft and Sogeti
2009 Microsoft and Sogeti

production LINE UP boek en media bv, Groningen, the Netherlands
editing Susan MacFarlane
design Jan Faber
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binding Abbringh, Groningen, the Netherlands
ISBN 978 90 75414 24 0
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III
Contents
The New World of BusinessCollaborative Innovation V
A Pragmatic Revolution VII
Reading Guide and Acknowledgements IX
Prelude: Business Reality 1
1 Clouds and Collaboration 9
1.1 Introduction 9
1.2 Defning the Cloud 9
1.3 Organization is Collaboration 18
1.4 The Cost of Crossing Boundaries 26
1.5 Conclusion 30
Case Stimmt AG 31
2 The Impact of Technological Revolutions 33
2.1 Introduction 33
2.2 The Delicate Balance Between Technology and Community 34
2.3 Technologys Poisoned Chalice 37
2.4 Six Technological Revolutions 40
2.5 Conclusion 48
Case REAAL Verzekeringen 49
3 The New Nature of the Firm 51
3.1 Introduction 51
3.2 A Society of Conversations 56
3.3 Management 2.0 61
3.4 Conclusion 68
Case Holland Casino 71
4 On Productivity 73
4.1 Introduction 73
4.2 Changing Markets 74
4.3 Consequences for IT 82
Case Sydved AB 85
5 The Anatomy of Collaboration 87
5.1 Introduction 87
5.2 Electronic Communication 89
5.3 Other Tools, Other Activities 92
IV
5.4 Collaboration Software Matrix 121
5.5 Conclusion 124
6 Groundwork for a New Organization 125
6.1 Introduction 125
6.2 What You Need to Succeed 128
6.3 A Model for Trust 129
6.4 Collaborative Culture 138
6.5 Goals and Rewards 146
6.6 Conclusion 155
Case Publishing Company 157
7 Mixing Software + Services 159
7.2 The Evolution of Service-Oriented Architectures 161
7.3 The Software + Services Model 168
7.4 Implications of Software + Services 170
7.5 Conclusion 174
Case ITAGroup 177
8 Social Computing for Business 179
8.2 The Emergence of Social Computing 179
8.3 Collaboration and Social Computing in the Enterprise 181
8.4 Web 2.0 185
8.5 Software + Services Enabling Social Computing 192
8.6 The Web as the Hub 194
8.7 In Conclusion Where Do We Go from Here 194
Case UVIT 197
9 Fourteen Questions to Guide the Revolution 201
9.2 The Fourteen Questions to Guide the Revolution 202
Case Toyota Material Handling Europe 215
10 Debunking Collaboration Myths 217
10.2 The Myths 218
10.3 Conclusion 225
About the Authors 227
Index 229
V
The New World of Business
Collaborative Innovation
Market turmoil shakes consumer and business confdence, diminishes the
value of fnancial assets, and creates uncertainty. History, however, informs
us that shifts in the economic landscape also offer unique opportunities for
those who are able to look past the near-term diffculties and seek out oppor-
tunities. Organizations can choose to retrench, or they can choose to prepare
for success and leadership roles. If they take the latter approach, returns
from hard-fought cost-reduction battles can be turned into infrastructure
improvements, more rational integrated processes, and fundamental changes
in market presence or positioning to fll new niches or those surrendered by
competitors.
Seeing opportunity in times of turmoil reframes challenges in a way that
projects the lessons of history onto the future. Suggesting that organizations
seize new opportunities during economic strife does not minimize the sig-
nifcant diffculties they will encounter. Although picturing the future is
diffcult, turbulent times call for balance against new factors. Balance will
always be essential. Organizations that can balance near-term concerns with
forward-looking expectations will be better poised to succeed as markets
calm; those that retreat risk becoming an anachronism while the world rein-
vents itself.
Whether one chooses to be opportunistic or defensive in their approach to
the turbulent economy, software and information technology has a central
role to play as the strategic enabler of success, the conservator of scarce
resources, and the accelerator of recovery.
The transformative impact of Software + Services and a new generation of
social computing technologies are profound and ongoing. These innovations
enable people and organizations to share information, collaborate on projects,
and build virtual communities, irrespective of time and geography. In the
process, they have made command-and-control hierarchies unnecessary as
mediating mechanisms for the fow of information.
VI
Collaborative software unites the blended workforce and makes the experi-
ence of working together as natural and productive as working in the same
physical location. Now, more powerful, integrated applications and services
for social computing including RSS feeds, wikis, blogs, and social networks
are joining the arsenal of collaboration tools available to businesses as they
become more secure and manageable in the enterprise. Use of these tools is
growing. Facilities such as project workspaces, document repositories, team
access to contact and schedule information, shared project fowcharts, shared
task lists, and automated notifcations provide a foundation for virtual team-
work by keeping everyones status and work visible. Team members can see
shared information in the periphery of their standard work environment, or
they can access up-to-the-minute data from any portable device.
Organizations are only beginning to come to grips with the impact of the
internet and other technologies on core business functions such as product
development, sales, customer relationship management, and operations. I
hope that this book can help you along this journey providing both practi-
cal insight and guidance towards realizing business value in this new world
of business.
Ron Markezich, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Online
Redmond, February 20
th
, 2009
VII
A Pragmatic Revolution
The book that you have in front of you is an important book. Not only does
it discuss two of the hottest topics of the present-day IT industry, collabora-
tive software and cloud computing, it also gives the contours of the New Firm
that will emerge after the dust clouds of this dramatic economic recession
have settled. And it is these contours that will allow you to anticipate the
signifcant change ahead and prosper more rapidly than others in the upturn
that will eventually arrive.
This gray and gloomy Tuesday morning saw the publication of yet another
set of economic data that was again revised downward, illustrating the seri-
ousness of the recession that we are experiencing. What was particularly
disturbing today was the rate at which circumstances deteriorated. We would
have to go a very long way back to see an economy as depressed as it pres-
ently is, which makes it hard to stay somewhat optimistic.
Although such shocks to the economy often lead to apathy and inertia, I am
totally convinced that this recession as is always the case is actually a sign
of deep and fundamental transformation of the nature of the frm or organ-
ization. Those organizations that believe that the best strategy is to lay low
and wait until the storm is over, are seriously mistaken. To stay with a met-
aphor, what we are dealing with here is not a storm that eventually will die
down. It is much more a shift of tectonic plates, creating a series of violent
earthquakes that will change everything forever. There is no premium for
laying low and for waiting in an earthquake zone. When you are going
through hell the main thing is to keep going, as they say! So, the time is
now to adjust to this new reality and to start creating and strengthening the
competences that will determine success of the New Firm. Failure to do so
is risky. It might jeopardize the future of your organization but it will def-
nitely slow you down in the recovery.
Organizations that are able to resist the pressures of operational cost cutting
and keep some minimum level of investment going are clearly going to proft
much quicker from the upturn than those that are totally fxated on short
term survival. That is why the main management challenge of today is to
create some kind of intelligent cost cutting, which to many will sound like
an oxymoron. Once again the famous dilemma of management emerges:
VIII
keeping an eye on what is important while dealing with what is urgent. How-
ever, this book should help you argue for investment in collaboration in times
when cash is king. It could even help you save money by accelerating the
shift towards delivering software as a service.
Although a lot still remains unclear, some basics of this New Firm are emerg-
ing. Hierarchical organization will give way to market. Conversations become
key and the capability to collaborate within and across organizational bound-
aries will inevitably determine success. Modern software tools are creating
radically new ways of collaborating between people. The pervasiveness of
the internet combined with new insights in software architecture is creating
new possibilities for delivering this functionality from the cloud, instantly
widening the scope for collaboration to a global perspective.
However, some caution is necessary, since we are at risk of technological
determinism. Things are not as simple as they sometimes appear to be. This
industry has become famous for its overestimation of change in the short
term. It is overhyping technology breakthroughs and ignoring the diffculties
that organizations will have applying these technologies in their business
processes. That is why two chapters in the book are dedicated to keeping this
revolution pragmatic. By debunking some common myths around collabora-
tions and giving you the right questions to ask, this book will help you to
focus on the matters that are important and to cut through all the hype.
Yes, this recession will cause violent change, but it will not do so overnight.
Technology can be considered a platform for social change or a refection of
it; however it is seldom the change itself. It is my sincere hope that the dis-
cussions in this book will inspire you to fnd the true nature of this change
and to determine how it will impact your frm.
Michiel Boreel, CTO Sogeti
Amsterdam, February 10
th
, 2009
IX
Reading Guide and Acknowledgments
This is a book about collaboration and cloud. It is about collaboration between
people and between companies, and about how this collaboration is chang-
ing. It is also about how markets and companies themselves are changing,
or how they will have to change in order to confront changes in technology
and society. And its about software: how we use it and how we are growing
towards a mix of traditional software and services from the cloud.
This book is written for any reader interested in IT strategy, innovation and
trends in business and technology. The book is not technical, and it will show
how technology can be used to create business value by improving collabora-
tion. CIOs, enterprise architects and people responsible for IT direction will
beneft from this book because it will advance their thinking on the topics of
collaboration and cloud computing. Though it is not a cookbook or how to
manual, this book will provide practical insights and guidance for the crea-
tion of your own strategy in these matters.
Specifcally, we will hand you a list of questions to ask when getting involved
in any initiative relating to collaboration or the cloud. Chapter 9, Fourteen
Questions to Guide the Revolution provides a pragmatic approach to the
topic. Combine that with Chapter 10, where we debunk some common myths,
and you should be all set to move forward in this exciting feld.
In the prelude we will examine the current crisis in the (global) markets,
and we will talk about the options companies have when faced with turbulent
times.
The frst chapter will then introduce the concepts of collaboration

and cloud computing and how they are connected. We relate cloud comput-
ing to Software as a Service and show the drivers for these trends. We also
talk about the nature of collaboration, and we sketch out several collabora-
tive scenarios in this chapter.
Chapter 2 talks about the larger shifts in

society. It discusses how trends in many areas are combining into large
transformations, and it discusses the effect of technology on people.
Then
in Chapter 3 we introduce the new nature of the frm, where not just com-
petition but especially collaboration is of the essence for survival. We intro-
duce the value chain 2.0.
Chapter 4 looks at the effect inside organizations

when faced with these changing times. It discusses the consumer-employee,
the consumployee, as a source of innovation, and goes into how an IT depart-
X
ment could respond.
Chapter 5 shows the different ingredients of col-

laboration and how they are interrelated. It also talks about email and the
email-less organization.
Chapter 6 is about the basics that need to be in

place for successful collaboration. It talks about trust, culture and rewards.
Collaborative culture may be hard to create from scratch, but we will give
some guidance on whats involved.
Chapter 7 talks about the reality of

cloud or Software as a Service, and shows that a mix of both traditional soft-
ware and cloud services provides greatest fexibility to deliver right-sized
solutions to an end user.
Chapter 8 goes one step deeper into the areas

where social computing for business can be of value, and the chapter dis-
cusses some of the scenarios. Here we also put Web 2.0 in a corporate con-
text.
Chapter 9 will hand you a list of questions to use to keep your feet on
the ground. It will serve to measure the reality of any proposal and guide
you when examining cloud and collaboration further, in combination with
Chapter 10.

In Chapter 10 we debunk some of the common myths around
collaboration.
Throughout the book, between the chapters, you will fnd

real-life customer cases that show the reality of collaboration and/or Soft-
ware as a Service.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the many clients who provided valuable input for this
book through interviews, discussions and (of course) projects. Their often
different views on terminology and strategy showed us the range in which
both collaboration and cloud computing are used in reality today. Eight of
the interviews given have been transformed into the case studies that are
spread throughout the book.
This book is the result of a close collaboration between a team of authors
from Microsoft and Sogeti. Supporting this team of authors were the many
contributors and reviewers from both companies who have helped to create
and hone the content.
Special thanks go to Herve Tourpe, Laurent Dieterich, Mike Martin, Per
Bjrkegren, Albert Hoitingh, William Heurdier and Michael Wagner for their
input and/or reviews of early versions of the manuscript.
1
Prelude: Business Reality
The World on Fire
It is September 15, 2008: Meltdown Monday. The worlds fnancial system
has collapsed into a global crisis. Stock market indices are dropping by dou-
ble digits and shareholder value is disappearing instantaneously every-
where. Seemingly healthy companies are forced to ask for assistance. National
governments of most countries have to jump in to prevent an even worse
catastrophe. Panic and uncertainty are sweeping the globe.
The world has faced fnancial crises before. Yet never before did a crisis have
such a worldwide impact. How can this be? The day after Meltdown Monday,
the New York Times featured an overview of the major stock markets across
the globe. The surprising realization that emerges from the graph is in the
pattern the markets follow. These patterns are very similar. The stock mar-
kets in different countries are synchronized. In other crises, when things
were simpler, the markets in different countries might have moved more or
less simultaneously (because, for example, the different currencies were all
tied to the price of gold) but never was the connection this close. These days,
the markets are much more tightly connected by real-time international
trade, products and (fnancial) services, leading us to in fact, the largest
synchronized downturn really in the postwar period
1
according to Charles
Collins, deputy director of the IMFs research department. While we are
used to thinking about local business and markets, companies are increas-
ingly operating across borders, turning from national into multinational,
from local to global players.
The stock markets are apparently engaged in a close and intricate dance that
was not obvious to the outside world before. The crisis, and particularly the
global nature of the crisis, came as a shock to all but the greatest doomsday-
prophet. Could the crisis have been averted? Is that a rhetorical question in
a time when you can fnd all information on the web? Across the globe we
see the same behavior, but people are not capable of making sense out of the
1 NPR news, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99404776.
2
complexity of events beforehand. Despite all transparency, fnding patterns
and predicting the future is still impossible.
Grotesk Light 9pt
Grotesk Reg 9pt
FTSE100 CAC40 DAX BOVESPA S&P500 NASDAQ
+10.2% +8.3% +11.2% +11.4% +14.7% +11.6% +11.8%
0
-10
-20
France Britain Brazil Germany United States
4PVSDF#MPPNCFSH
HANG SENG
Hong Kong
Mondays change in %, since September 20
Figure 0.1: Overview of Major Stock Markets Around the Globe
Life in a Complex World
The internet is now over 20 years old. Never before has a new technology
had such a wide impact on global society. The internet has changed (busi-
ness) life beyond recognition:
Distances have shrunk or disappeared completely. Technology has made the
earth small and fat. Information, work and capital can be spread across the
globe at the press of a button. You can contact strangers and create new
forms of collaboration in the blink of an eye. At the same time, the problems
of the globe also fnd their way to everyone: everybody knows about the
challenges the world is facing with regard to energy, the environment and
clean water. Wars and terrorism are global themes. Everybody in the world
is connected economically, technologically and socially.
Time itself has changed, or at least our perception of it. We are living in a
24/7 economy. On the World Wide Web there are no closing times or holiday
closings. The doors of the virtual stores are always open to anyone or, more
precisely, to anyone with a credit card.
A transparent world makes secrets history and drowns us in data. There are
no more secrets! Good news and bad news circles the world in an instant.
Information is available to anyone anytime. We are continuously connected
to the internet. Using computers, laptops, cell phones and other devices, we
can access a mountain of data on request. Moreover, this mountain is still
growing: everything that can be digitized is being transformed into bits.
Maps, old archives, video, music, and statistics are added to the internet
3
every day. Every object, process and service will be able to communicate and
combine autonomously with someone or something else. The internet is
changing from a collection of pages to a database of things.
2
The question is,
how do we transform this huge pile of data into intelligence? And at what
cost? Quoting Herbert Simon:
What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recip-
ients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to
allocate that attention effciently among the overabundance of information sources
that might consume it.
IDC expects that by 2011 the digital universe will be ten times the size it was
in 2006.
3
How do we keep it from exploding? How do we stay on top?
And language? Is language the spanner in the works? At this moment, lan-
guage remains a barrier. Half of the world cannot communicate with the
other half, simply because they cannot understand one another or even read
each others alphabet. However, this barrier will break down soon. Numer-
ous software vendors are busy working to allow at least some communication
across linguistic boundaries. The 100% automated, foolproof translation
service is a challenge closely tied to the holy grail of artifcial intelligence,
but in a couple of years you might be uncertain as to what language the per-
son on the other end is using to communicate.
The above trends not only affect us humans, but even more, they affect the
way organizations operate, how society works. Companies can no longer
survive on their own in this dynamic world. Any one player alone cannot
grasp and properly respond to the complexity of the large interconnected
world.
Technology and how it can be used is about to drastically change the nature
of companies and how companies create value. The crisis of the fourth quar-
ter of 2008 was, at least in part, made possible by using technology to connect
and combine markets. The crisis itself shows that the disruptive nature of
these new technologies is inescapable. Every industry has become involved
and is feeling the effect.
2 http://www.kk.org/2008/11/web-100.php.
3 http://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst-reports/diverse-exploding-digital-universe.pdf.
4
Patterns in Complex Systems: The Butterfy Effect
In 1961 meteorologist and mathematician Edward Lorenz executed a simula-
tion on his computer to create a weather forecast. To his astonishment, the
simulation showed a completely different prediction when he rounded the
number 0.506127 to 0.506 in a series of numbers. In 1963 he published his
fndings in the New York Academy of Sciences. He described the above result
as follows: One meteorologist remarked that if the theory were correct, one
fap of a seagulls wings could change the course of weather forever. Later,
the seagull mentioned was replaced by a butterfy, which led to the famous
quote, Does the fap of a butterfys wings in Brazil set off a tornado in
Texas?
The effect is also called the butterfy effect
4
and it is often used to describe
chaos theory. This theory states that small changes in the initial setup of a
dynamic system can have a huge impact in the long run, an impact that is
impossible to predict. Examples of such complex, dynamic systems are the
weather and also the global economy.
In the conclusion to his book Linked writer Albert-Lszl Barabsi
5
makes a
statement about how markets are defned by interaction and connections. He
shares the following thought: The unpredictability of economic processes
is rooted in the unknown interaction map behind the mythical market.
Therefore, networks are the prerequisite for describing any complex system,
indicating that complexity theory must inevitably stand on the shoulders of
the network theory. This thought raises questions such as, what is the rela-
tion between the network called The Internet and this present-day economy?
What is the cause and which is the effect in events that involve both? How
can companies and governments handle this increasingly complex world?
Managing in Times of Change
A downturn does make some things easier for a manager. It helps you focus
on your clients and makes it easier to prioritize. Managers looking to use this
4 Butterfy Efect, Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org, 30 November 2008.
5 Albert-Lszl Barabsi, Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for
Business, Science and Everyday Life, Plume Printing, 2003.
5
time to change their organization for the better will also be examining their
own role in this change.
Marketing guru Seth Godin wrote in his book Tribes that the real difference
in todays business world is that anybody can create change. Everybody has
the opportunity to connect and start a new community (Tribe). These com-
munities nurture the leaders of tomorrow, and organizations can choose to
embrace these leaders, inside or outside their organizational boundaries.
Management is about manipulating resources to get a known job done leadership
is about creating change you can believe in. Leaders have followers. Managers
have employees.
The Virginia Satir Change Model
6
gives insight into how organizations can
change in times of chaos. In this model, a disruption of the old order is a
golden opportunity to get things done and reach new levels of performance.
On his blog The Social Customer Manifesto
7
Christopher Carf describes the
process as follows:
Things are plodding along within an organization or community.
There is a foreign object (e.g. a new thought, or participant, or strategy)
introduced into the organization.
Things get chaotic while the community fgures out how to deal with the
new.
There is a transformational thought, a transforming idea, and a point at
which the group gets it and starts to gel in the new world.
Chaos declines, and performance then stabilizes at a new, improved
level.
In the popular and related book The Black Swan,
8
written by Nassim Nicho-
las Taleb, more is said about events that can disrupt the old status quo. He
uses a story about the discovery of black swans as an example to illustrate
how accidental events can change our perception and our lives. Harry Potter
was a black swan, 9-11 and the Meltdown Monday of September 15, 2008
were, too. They are unpredictable, have a major impact and afterwards we
try to make them rational and predictable.
6 http://www.satirworkshops.com/fles/satirchangemodel.pdf.
7 http://www.socialcustomer.com/2008/11/satir-ical.html.
8 Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Random House, 17 April
2007.
6
Time
New Status Quo
Old Status Quo
Chaos
Integration
&
Practice
Foreign Element
P
e
r
f
o
r
m
a
n
c
e
Transforming Idea
Figure 0.2: Satir Model of System Change
Times of Trouble or Times of Choice
Companies have a choice. Will a company pull back in defense or use the
turmoil to reach new levels of performance? Focus on survival only, or focus
on the market of the future after the crisis? Are companies able to use the
economic downturn to their advantage?
The urge to survive drives companies to cut cost, reduce operations and lay
off many people. Yet even survival needs direction: the American car com-
panies are not looking back for survival, they are looking forward. The
newspaper industry is not looking at reviving print media, but looking for-
ward. This is the essential insight that will shape the leading companies of
the future: focus to survive todays crisis and to survive the radical changes
that are happening all around us.
Free
9
is heralded as one of the business models of the future. Thanks to
digitization, globalization and opening of markets, the global market is
9 http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/f_free.
7
becoming more effcient. Lower transaction costs are the direct result of
changing markets, and it forces companies to downsize and rethink their
strategy. New sources and markets must be opened up in order to survive,
and only through collaboration with others can this be achieved in time.
One thing that the current crisis has taught everybody is that change is
needed. Companies can no longer ignore the reality of a globally connected,
complex and volatile business world. Sticking to old routines will not suffce.
A new era calls for new measures.
As for where to look for solutions, Seth Godin recently shared this insight on
his weblog
10
: The dramatic leverage of the net more than overcomes the
downs of the current economy. The essence is this: connect. Connect the
disconnected to each other and you create value. Organizations can create
value in this new economy by connecting and collaborating.
10 http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/how-to-make-mon.html.
9
1
Clouds and Collaboration
1.1
Introduction
A promise is a cloud; fulfllment is rain
Arabian Proverb
The topics of collaboration and cloud computing have a lot in common. For
one thing, both are concepts that touch or cross the boundaries of an organ-
ization and that are closely related to corporate innovation. Both are relevant
to the relation between business and IT. Both play an important role in these
fnancially unstable times. And last but not least, both can be broadly inter-
preted and can have a major impact on the effciency of organizations and
IT. Microsoft and Sogeti recognized the importance of both topics, and they
also saw how these developments accelerate each other. Accordingly, these
companies decided to collaborate, research the topic further, and write this
book. In it, we will discuss both cloud computing and collaboration in depth.
We will start by exploring how these terms are commonly used.
1.2
Defning the Cloud
The term cloud originally came from diagrams where the internet itself
was represented by an image of a cloud, yet trying to fnd a narrow defnition
of cloud computing that everybody agrees upon is not easy. The most specifc
defnition would be that it describes a situation where some computing is
taking place somewhere else, using the internet. But then there is also talk
of something called my cloud, where the somewhere else might be right
in your own datacenter. Clouds seem diffcult to nail down.
Forrester Research in a recent presentation defned cloud computing more
in terms of business economics: Cloud computing is buying IT capacity and
applications as-needed from a utility service provider. While this defnition
does not mention the actual delivery model, it does touch upon the expansive
nature of cloud computing and notes that there is another party involved:
the utility service provider. Also, cloud capacity can be consumed at a cost.
10
Payment may be in money or, in the case of free services, payment may be
made by exchanging advertising value: consumer attention as currency (and
some providers offer services for free simply in the hope of creating lock-in
and selling upgrades or support). Another analyst frm, Gartner Research,
uses different phrasing and focuses on slightly different aspects but arrives
at a similar defnition: Cloud computing is a style of computing where mas-
sively scalable IT-related capabilities are provided as a service across the
Internet to multiple external customers.
1
It is interesting to note that
Gartner specifcally includes as a service in their defnition.
Meanwhile, in less formal terms, cloud has been widely adopted by many
parties trying to market their services as part of this new and engaging con-
cept. Companies are increasingly including internet functionality in their
IT portfolios. The internet is slowly but surely reaching into all areas where
connecting to some functionality has become more important than owning
that functionality. The internet is serving up solutions for situations where
its more important to get things done than to own the hardware or software
that is needed to get those things done. It starts with very generic solutions,
but increasingly solutions that are more specifc become available online. It
is in this light that cloud has become the label to put on all things that are
provisioned over the internet, be it server capacity, complete offce solutions
or a CRM system.
Figure 1.1: Cloud Computing Simply Explained
2
1 http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/11/03/cloud-computing-its-the-destination-
not-the-journey-that-is.aspx.
2 http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2008/05/simply-explaine.html.
11
1 Clouds and Collaboration
Some characteristics that are commonly associated with a cloud offering:
Users and clients connect to the services using the internet.
The service offered can range from technical services to a complete user-
facing, functional solution. It can also offer part of the stack, such as stor-
age, computing power, technical components or partial business compo-
nents.
A provider in this scenario will often aim for economy of scale by offer-
ing a multi-user or multi-customer (Multi-Tenant) environment to opti-
mize effciency, where the fuctuations in capacity demand will even out
over multiple users. The services offered then only have basic confgura-
tion options but may be enhanced with (standard) add-ons.
The provider will generally charge for use of the service (per user, per
day, per load, per call, etc.). There are also many providers offering serv-
ices for free while they are still in Beta mode, or which are paid for using
an advertising model.
Services from different providers should be (but are not always!) easy to
combine ad-hoc to ft the needs of the client. The term mashup defnes
the situation where multiple services are combined to (easily) create a
new solution.
The cloud concept builds on the themes the IT industry has explored when
introducing the Application Service Provider concept, outsourcing of data-
centers and the introduction of shared service centers. The ASP concept
introduced us to the concept of an external-party offering functionality on
an on-demand and pay-per-use basis. Outsourcing helped us consider
redrawing the boundaries of our own IT for the sake of effciency. Shared
Service Centers helped us look for communality in a broader set of needs.
All these themes return in cloud computing.
These developments were then fueled by Web 2.0 (another one of these
hard-to-defne terms), where simple interfacing allowed users to confgure
and combine the myriad of services to suit their needs, while adding a social
context: doing this together with others. The resulting explosion of start-ups
and innovations created a rapidly evolving market where many valuable
services and websites emerged. Examples of these are sites that let people
work together on documents or graphics (www.zoho.com) and sites that help
people fnd interesting information online using social bookmarking (digg.
com or stumbleupon.com). Also, providers are starting to offer all sorts of
technical components online to integrate information or create new combi-
nations online (RSS readers online that allow you to integrate news feeds,
12
Yahoo! Pipes and MS Popfy, thereby combining feeds and processes into
new feeds or services).
Cloud Formerly Known as SaaS?
At this point you might ask: but how does cloud relate to Software as a Service
(SaaS)? Both are defnitely used in the same space: Software as a Service is
the term the IT industry originally used to describe the model where service
providers offer a hosted solution for which clients pay based on how much
capacity they actually use. Software as a Service is more focused on complete
solutions that are accessible over the internet. In a similar vein, there is also
the notion of infrastructure as a service, where server or storage capacity is
made available. Cloud computing is a broader term, which also comprises
Software as a Service, whereas SaaS originally was more narrowly associated
with complete solutions from specifc Application Service Providers (ASPs).
News Volume
Application Service
Provider
News Volume
Cloud Computing
News Volume
Software as a Service
1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008
Figure 1.2: Waves of Terminology Hitting the News
3
3 Source: Google news archives, not to scale.
13
If you go online today, you will fnd that many solutions can be provisioned
as a service, not least because it is a very attractive model for software
vendors. Vendors offering their products as a service have an easier time
dealing with the complexities of versioning and roll-outs, and they can craft
very lucrative contracts. The focus of the larger providers is primarily to
provide economies of scale: offer commodity services at very competing
prices (cheaper than on-premise installations) and earn proft by attracting
and locking in large numbers of customers. Large providers will be the only
ones that can build for scale, so they are the ones able to offer commodity
services (email, document management, messaging etc.). Smaller service
providers cannot compete and must provide value with add-on or specialized
services. The good thing is that the commoditized services provide a stand-
ardized groundwork on which many other services can fourish.
For the (potential) consumer of the service, the attraction often lies in the
lower up-front cost, better fnancial structure (fxed versus variable cost),
ease of deployment and easy scalability. It is simple to try a new solution and
scale up if it proves successful. Provisioning software from the cloud is gen-
erally quicker, which comes in very useful in for example a merger scenario.
Overall we could say that Software as a Service means that the CIO has
fewer worries. The CIO has to worry a lot less about:
4
Upgrading the software and technology stack: with SaaS the provider
takes care of most of this (sometimes client software still needs to be
updated to be able to consume a service).
Getting stuck using an old version of software for which support has
expired: using SaaS you always get the latest services.
Making sure the software needs and infrastructure match: again, some-
thing the provider will take care of.
Maintaining multiple staging environments (testing, pre-release, devel-
opment): switching extra environments on or off is easy with SaaS.
Building technical expertise for the software: all you need to know is how
to use the service, its contract and interfaces, not its inner workings.
Shelfware running up a bill for unused licenses: unused services may be
free of charge or capable of being turned off.
4 http://buildingsaas.typepad.com/blog/2008/06/more-saas-simplicity-additional-things-that-saas-cus-
tomers-dont-have-to-worry-about.html.
14
Major impact of software upgrades: a service change will generally not
affect databases, platforms, etc.
Performance tuning: in case of SaaS, call the provider if the SLA isnt
met.
Vendor attitudes, bad support, bad quality: a service contract depends
upon a happy client as opposed to a one-time license sale that is fnal and
fnite.
User acceptance / adapting to new software versions: fewer big releases
and more small steps lead to a kind of continual software/service improve-
ment that users can follow more easily. People act as part of the viral
deployment of new features/capabilities.
On the downside, new uncertainties are also part of the reality of SaaS and
cloud. Security and confdentiality of data are often cited as a problem (see
also Chapter 10), new governance models are needed to manage a multitude
of external parties, backups and archiving need to be approached differently,
how we test will change etc. Also the question of integration and how to
ensure a single user experience will demand some study. Some of these
issues are addressed by new standards, some require a new way of thinking
and others might simply be the cost of using SaaS.
Cloud
Native Web
Applications
SaaS
S|zc ot c|ooJ|crs ooJ ovcr|op sbowo |s oor ro sco|c
Soorcc. Gorrocr (1o|y 2008j
Hosted dedicated
Web applications
and Web Content
AIaaS Shared Application
Infrastructure as a Service
APaaS Application platform
as a Service
IaaS Integration as a Service
Programmable or
programmatically
accessible
resources
Commodity
(industrialized)
computing
resources
Fixed, dedicated
resources
Hardware
managed
by others
Shared
applications
Elastic Internet
resources
Provider-dedicated
Web applications and
Web content
Hosting
Infrastructure Utility
Web Hosting
O-Premises
Cloud
Platform
AIaaS
IaaS
APaaS
Figure 1.3: This diagram from Gartner shows the wide range of terminology used in
relation to cloud and SaaS
15
Whereas SaaS still typically involves complete applications, the options
available from cloud seem to be more fexible: offering partial solutions,
components, and individual services that can be used to create your own
solution. There are many examples where cloud can offer almost anything
as a service. Figure 1.3 is an attempt by Gartner to draw some borders around
the different clouds.
Quick News Highlights from the Cloud
To give you some idea of what services are being ofered from the cloud, the follow-
ing are some random highlights of recent (end 2008) news announcements involving
cloud computing or Software as a Service:
Expresso (ExpressoCorp.com) has launced an online real-time collaborative Excel
solution as a service that according to their website assists in the trend toward man-
aged on-line business communities. Jobscience.com is ofering new Recruitment
applications as a Service Cornerstone.com has launched a new Learning and
Talent Management platform that can be used as a Service At descarted.com
you will fnd On-Demand feet and transportation management services that are
used by among others Home Depot. Etelos.com is ofering current application
vendors to pick up existing applications and start provisioning in an As A Service
model. Zoho.com is ofering a complete range of online productivity solutions such
as email, document creation and spreadsheets. It is now also ofering SQL as a serv-
ice, ofering to integrate data from multiple websites Sage is ofering an Online
Cashbook called Sage Live Cash. Having embraced the Software as a Service phi-
losophy, the Sage Live team has gone as far as it can to exploit the opportunities of
the Web 2.0 approach: integration with Google Docs and built-in link to PayPal online
payment solutions. Mortgagedashboard has extended their Loan Origination
System that is a SaaS solution Themis solutions is ofering a complete solution as
a service for attorneys to support their practice. Demographicsnow has improved
their customer and business profling SaaS ofering Compliance 360 announced
the availability of its claims audit solution that helps organizations manage a wide
variety of claims audits and appeals, including those conducted under the CMS Medi-
care Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program. Litebi has launched business intel-
ligence delivered via Software as a Service. Fi-Tek, LLC and the Northern Trust
Company announced the release of TrustPortal that is also available in an ASP model:
a fully integrated, straight-through solution for trust management that includes
investment management with electronic trade execution, compliance, administration,
accounting, operations, automated account review, extensive web-based report
engines, and with a host of third party interfaces including complete custody recon-
ciliation. Phisme is ofering a service to prevent phishing attacks Webroot
16
announced E-Mail Security SaaS that protects against spam, viruses and data leak-
age, along with additional compliance, archiving and business continuity features.
Winscribe has launched a Digital Dictation solution as a service. It will mainly be
used by healthcare professionals. Physiotherapists are using Phillips devices to record
their dictations, which are then uploaded to a secure site that can be accessed by
secretaries who work in another building. Elemica is ofering a service that supports
supply chains.
Service as a Service
It is important to keep in mind that whats new is not simply that computing
starts to reside in different places, but that for a user, there is less involve-
ment with the software part of the service. The focus is shifting from the
technical features of software to the use, functionality and usability of the
services. Dont underestimate the appeal for a business user of being able to
set up a portal, website or dashboard without needing to call the IT depart-
ment. If anything, online services magnify the need for good usability.
For a business user, the important part of anything as a service is that it
really can be service as a service. It is no longer about software or technol-
ogy; it really is about the discovery and the use of a service itself. If, for
example, a business user discovers a website offering a simple tool that
allows him to keep track of the competition by analyzing their rates or press
releases, this same business user can start to use this service and integrate
it into his daily processes. If he is then also supported with the knowledge
and a simple framework to integrate the service into the other tools hes
using (for example, an existing dashboard or spreadsheet), the role of the IT
department will begin to shift to providing an infrastructure instead of pro-
viding solutions.
There are many vendors playing a part in the current cloud: each offering their
own software solution as a service, each providing different models of payment
and delivery. Blogger Matias Woloski
5
wrote a thesis on the topic of SaaS. In
his research he drew a conceptual map of the SaaS space and related topics
(see Figure 1.4). Though again using different terminology than, for example,
Forrester Research, the elements he recognized are roughly the same.
5 http://blogs.southworks.net/mwoloski/.
17
Matias Woloski also created a similar taxonomic diagram showing the names
and logos of some companies offering services in particular spaces (see Fig-
ure 1.5). Since this is an area that is still booming, this diagram was already
outdated the moment it was drawn, but it will give you an idea of where dif-
ferent service providers are positioned.
Figure 1.4: Woloski Conceptual Map of SaaS
Figure 1.5: Woloski Map of Service Providers
18
Already from these diagrams and the news announcements above, we see that
many of the services offered in the cloud are in some way related to collabora-
tion, either by proving support for web conferencing between groups of people,
by creating documents online or by sharing information about clients or enter-
prise resources with colleagues. So lets take a closer look at collaboration.
1.3
Organization is Collaboration
Business is predominantly carried out by organizations, and an organization
is essentially an arrangement of people working together for a common goal.
In other words, collaboration is the essence of any organization, and organ-
izations exist to better organize collaboration. Still, businesses have been
slow to improve and support this very collaboration as something that could
be of importance to the overall success of the frm. Organizations try hard
to hire the best people and build teams and departments with the necessary
skills. They try to motivate people with bonuses and benefts. But when it
comes to actually looking at the interaction between people, and how an
organization can best support it, practices are thin. For the most part we have
used proven (i.e. old) management models, introduced email and mobile
phones, and for the rest, left people to their own devices.
An important aspect that also defnes an organization is that it is active
within an environment from which it is separated by some boundary: there
is an inside and an outside of the organization. Where this boundary is,
how large the organization within this boundary is, and how the organiza-
tion is interacting across this boundary has all changed due to the power of
the internet and other market forces. And it will continue to change even
more, driven by competitive forces, globalization and, not least, by new tech-
nologies. The speed of change is almost real-time. As Ivan Illich once said:
We might already be beyond the age of speed, by moving into the age of
real-time.
Now, how can you develop effective organizational strategy in times of
change? In times of economic turmoil, there is a tendency to focus on defen-
sive measures by trying to reduce costs and optimize effciency. Looking at
productivity will surely help in that respect. You can make people more
effective and effcient; reduce the time spent on meetings, travel or search-
ing information. Help people make better and quicker decisions, create bet-
ter deliverables or do better knowledge management.
19
Other companies will use these times for exploring innovation: trying to fnd
a new and future market and developing a commodity that will do well in
that market. In times of market fuctuation, its just as important to hang onto
your part of the future market as it is to survive current circumstances. This
too is a driver for looking at collaboration: trying to fnd new solutions, inno-
vations and opportunities that can be achieved by the people who work for
you. And heres the crux: even people that are not part of the organization
can be engaged to work with you, and for you. Thanks to the Web 2.0 tools
that are widely available, companies can tap into the collective intelligence.
6

And when you succeed in engaging these people, they will be your future
most loyal customers. On both ends, it pays to examine collaboration: to
optimize existing processes and to create new opportunities by starting an
ongoing dialogue with your customers.
Defning Collaboration
Before moving on, it will be interesting to look at your own understanding
of this concept: What is your defnition of collaboration? Which other terms
do you associate with it? In what context have you used the term in your job
recently? In talking to people from different organizations, a lot of defni-
tions of collaboration surface. Some are broadly addressing business-to-
business activities; others are only using the term to talk about the imple-
mentation of specifc technology. But even then, some use it to describe their
conference-calling partner; others talk about their portals and intranet, and
still others talk about their project management approach.
To explore your own assumptions and understanding of the concept col-
laboration, here are some thought-provoking questions:
In what context did you last talk about collaboration?
Do you or some of your colleagues collaborate with competitors? Perhaps
in an area where you dont compete, or where you provide commodity
products or services?
Is sending an email a form of collaboration? Is using the phone?
Do you personally collaborate with some people more than with others?
With whom do you collaborate? Who else could you collaborate with more
intensively?
6 Don Tapscott, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, 2006.
20
How does the culture and management of your organization infuence the
way you and your colleagues collaborate? Are you personally trained or
supported in how to collaborate?
Do you or some of your colleagues collaborate across boundaries? With
other business units? With people outside your organization? With
friends? With anonymous people outside your company?
Is using Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, instant messaging or Twitter col-
laboration? Can you collaborate in a virtual world such as Second Life or
even World of Warcraft? And what if you contribute to Wikipedia?
Does your organization have a strategy for collaboration? If so, be hon-
est: was it driven by a business need or a technological capability? Is this
a strategy for the short or the long term? Is it even possible to create a
collaboration strategy for the long term?
What opportunities would better collaboration inside and outside your
organization bring? Could you save money or create added value?
Since collaboration is the essence of being an organization, it is a much wider
concept than is traditionally discussed. The word collaboration in a busi-
ness context has somehow shifted towards how people work together within
an organization. Yet when we interviewed clients about how they would
defne collaboration, we got a wide range of answers. The one thing every-
body does agree upon is that for two or more parties to collaborate, you need
a common goal or deliverable. After that, all defnitions are possible: it might
be two people collaborating, or two companies. People can be part of the
same company, or crossing company boundaries. It might be done by using
paper and pencil, or it might be a completely automated process where dif-
ferent systems interact to reach one goal. In this book we will discuss the
essence of present-day collaboration, the importance of and the new modes
of collaborating.
For now, we will defne collaboration as:
Interaction between multiple parties (two or more);
All parties are doing work; and
With a shared purpose or goal, all parties will get something in return for
their efforts;
It can be across boundaries.
The shared purpose or goal does not have to be the sole thing motivating the
parties to collaborate; they could also have corporate or personal goals that
give them the incentive to collaborate. For example, the shared goal for a
21
team of people working together might be to create the most user-friendly
online banking solution, yet the personal goals of those individuals could be
to work with a specifc guru, to improve the world, to make promotion, to
learn about the topic, etc. As long as the personal goals are in line with the
shared goal, or the shared goal is part of the personal goals, collaboration
can be successful. Perhaps we could say that collaboration needs a shared
goal and/or multiple compatible goals. (We will discuss this topic more in
depth in Chapter 6.)
People Working with People, Business with Business
Are people collaborating, or are companies collaborating? Depending on
your level of abstraction, both could be happening. Ultimately, it is human
collaboration that allows companies to work together: people make the con-
nection and set up the relationship that allows two companies to collaborate.
Once the connection has been made, and both parties agree on the specifcs
of their collaboration, the implementation will move into the realm of tech-
nology: systems working with systems instead of people working with peo-
ple. The boundary between collaboration and combination begins to fade
once we look at services being combined by a third party. If someone com-
bines an online mapping service with an online statistical information serv-
ice, are the mapping provider and the agency providing the statistical infor-
mation now collaborating? The two services are jointly providing a solution
in which they may each perform their intended function without any contact
between them. Is this collaboration or merely combination? And what if
the person combining the services works for one or both providers? As you
see, the introduction of services that may be used from the cloud has a direct
impact on how companies collaborate and how collaboration evolves.
No Such Thing as Collaboration
The examples above show that collaboration, like perhaps all relationships,
is often a trade: I will do this for you, if you will do this for me. I will provide
you with a certain skill if you help me with the skill I am missing. Both parties
invest, and both parties get something in return. The more the goal is shared
between the parties, the more we would rate their relationship towards the
collaboration end of the scale (and perhaps no money needs to change
hands). The less the goal is shared, the more their relationship tends towards
22
the combination end of the scale, where one party might charge the other
for contributing to the joint solution or both parties might achieve different
goals through the combination. The situation is analogous to defning another
company as a partner (collaboration, shared goals) or a supplier (combina-
tion, different goals). The trigger for initiating collaboration, or partnership,
in this case is the realization that together something could be achieved that
one party alone cannot achieve: such as providing a specifc service, creating
a more specialized or complex solution, or greatly improving service quality.
We generally accept that in collaboration 1 + 1 = 3: I need you, you need me
and together we reach a common goal, a higher goal, generate added value.
Basically, within companies collaboration is the natural model (since col-
laboration is the essence of organization). Inter-company collaboration is a
trade for the beneft of all involved.
There are many scenarios for collaboration. In a business context, some are
recurring situations: people within projects working together, looking out-
side the company for innovation, two companies creating proposals together,
or multiple companies partnering to form a supply chain.
Colleagues Collaborating on a Project
Multiple people working together under the guidance of an appointed project man-
ager is probably the most traditional form of explicit collaboration within an organiza-
tion. Teams are formed based upon skills and (ideally) personalities. The project goals
are explicit and externally defned, and the roles within the project are usually well
defned.
Technical support for the collaboration depends upon the deliverables of the project,
but mainly email and face-to-face meetings will be used, with possibly some confer-
ence calling if the team members are working from diferent locations. Conference-
calling support is commonly provisioned from the cloud, using free conference-
calling providers or providers contracted by the organization. In projects that deliver
software or some other jointly composed deliverable there will be a solution that
combines the contributions of the individuals, in a format designed for contribution.
Software versioning systems fall into this category, and are mostly hosted within an
organization itself. Other aspects relating to team function are mostly top-down: the
project manager uses task assignment and project reporting tools to assume con-
trol over the team.
In Chapter 5, The Anatomy of Collaboration, you will fnd extensive examples of how
collaboration works best when supported by all available tools.
23
People collaborate because they must, because their job requires them to
work with colleagues on projects, or as an ongoing process. People collabo-
rate because they are assigned tasks that they cant perform alone, so they
are driven to collaborate with others. But there are also other reasons to col-
laborate. In fact, could it also be a matter of habit? Or could it simply be for
fun? Think of the newer generations: the GEN-Y-ers, the digital natives, the
people who grew up in a world of the internet, mobile phones and TV on
demand (TiVo). They are much more collaborative from the outset: the social
aspect of people gathering in an organization is becoming more important
as a way to attract and bind talented people. And regardless of fnancial
turmoil, attracting and motivating young people will be one of the challenges
businesses face in the coming decade.
Motivations to collaborate can be anything from personal beliefs to a longing
for status to a direct need for the deliverable that is subject of the collabora-
tion. People dont only collaborate because they need to; they also collaborate
just because its the natural thing to do and because its fun. This social
aspect of collaboration is where many organizations fnd a lot of the value of
improved collaboration. Giving people new ways to create social bonds
within the organization and allowing ad-hoc collaborations gives people the
opportunity to create friends within the company. It also potentially creates
the most problems: how do we manage this, and how do we stay productive
(if there is such a thing as productivity that you can measure and manage).
Collaboration and Cloud Come Naturally for Digital Natives
Put a team of recent graduates on a project and within fve minutes they will be procur-
ing a portal for collaboration, exchanging instant-messaging IDs and adding one another
to their Facebook pages. The team goals are important; the deliverables and communi-
cation is important, but the rest of the structure is fairly free and left to the individuals
discretion. Commitments are deliverable-based and the team members will work when-
ever they feel like it: at night, early in the morning, or during regular business hours.
The new expectations these digital natives bring to the employment market puts pres-
sure on organizations looking to attract the brightest students. When support is not
available from inside the company, these digital natives will procure from the cloud.
When the cloud is of-limits, and there is no internal alternative, they are very likely
to pack up and leave for a place where they CAN work the way they like. A higher
dislike for bureaucracy, the experience of growing up during the internet-era with
wonderful stories of how startups treated their employees, and an international ori-
entation make this generation difcult to attract and to motivate.
24
Collaboration and networking are natural having over 200 friends is nothing spe-
cial. Approaching one of these friends to get some information is the natural thing to
do, and vice versa. Responding to the needs of the network is also characteristic of
this generation.
Free Collaboration?
When people have different motivations to collaborate, how is that for com-
panies? People can contribute to projects for many reasons, how is that for
commercial organizations? Does it pay to freely collaborate? Perhaps sur-
prisingly, on the internet free is often a viable business model. As with
individuals, there are many different drivers for companies to offer free
collaboration; for example, to beneft from the resulting product (e.g. in open
source), to gain a marketing position or attract future clients, or to build
corporate image by showing you are committed to improve the world. Many
companies dont expect immediate returns but act on a kind of pay it
forward
7
principle. The collaborative projects the companies enter into can
also be on a wide range of subjects, from the creation of software to solving
world problems, from creating books to collaboratively fnding innovative
solutions to industry problems.
Innovation and Creation
Creating a concrete deliverable together is straightforward: split up the task,
contribute parts and combine them to construct the complete deliverable.
Even this will take coordination and skill to accomplish, but at least it is a
concrete and often measurable task. Ideation, creating new ideas together or
creating innovation is a lot less concrete. Ideas are hard to plan, measure
or manage. Yet continuous innovation is what makes a company proftable.
So how does collaboration help innovation? The answer to this question lies
in crowdsourcing innovation or open innovation: involving a larger than
usual group of individuals in company innovation.
The idea is that the wider the search for ideas, the greater the chance that
good ideas will be found, the greater the chance that good ideas may be prof-
7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_it_forward.
25
itably combined, and the better the ultimate product or service. (In turn, a
better product may demand a higher price). If I could enlist everybody in the
world to help me solve a problem, or even just everybody on the internet, I
am sure that someone out there would be able to give me a solution almost
instantly. However, there is a catch: involving many more people would only
be manageable if I did not have to handle coordinating and interacting with
all of them. If I must personally deal with every idea, I will never fnd the
good ideas among the not-so-good.
Crowdsourcing innovation is a unique form of collaboration where anyone
with a stake in a product or service can contribute to defning and improving
that product or service. Consumers work with producers to create products
that best serve the consumers needs. Employees can be invited to help
improve the inner workings of an organization, but will also be challenged
to come up with ways to create better value for the end consumer. Almost
any creative process can be crowdsourced to beneft from the creativity of
the crowd: logo design, chemical research challenges, architecture design,
product development, writing and others.
Innovation is not the only thing that can be crowdsourced: the production of
deliverables can also be tendered to the crowd. The most specifc example
of this may be in software development where on TopCoder.com the crowd
can build software to requirements.
Collaboration with the Crowd for Innovation
In a scenario where a company is looking to crowdsource parts of their research and
development, the aim is to allow the best ideas and solutions to surface almost auto-
matically. The company would achieve this by posting their challenge online and
inviting people to post suggestions. Usually this is done by providing a very free-for-
mat platform where ideas can be posted, commented on by others then cataloged
and rated by the people online. The creators and the people who do the rating may
not be the same people, but will be part of the same community.
Depending on the size of an organization, crowdsourcing can also be initiated strictly
within company boundaries: not involving the general public but asking employees to
take part. While the principles might be generally the same, the implementation will
26
be diferent. For one thing, internet scale is diferent than company scale. If 1% of your
internet audience responds, that is a large group of people responding. If 1% of your
employees respond, it is less likely that the next greatest idea will be born. The most
successful crowdsourcing initiatives involve the internet, invite the general public to
contribute, and have a clearly defned challenge.
The reward for contributing to this collaboration might be anything from eternal
fame (if your suggestion could become the name of the latest Coca-Cola product,
that might be enough motivation to take part) to a monetary award or some other
incentive. The open source software community teaches us that fnancial reward is
defnitely not essential for an open initiative to succeed.
An interesting example is Talpa Creative (www.talpaCreative.com) where the com-
munity is invited to help create new television formats: coming up with new ideas but
also taking existing ideas to higher levels. Voting, pitching ideas and competition are
part of the platform. The rewards are fnancial but small, and a part of the attraction
is being the one who came up with the next Deal or No Deal or Big Brother
show.
Current crowdsourcing initiatives use fairly basic, text-based tools. User identifcation
and user profles are important for building credentials, while forums or discussion
boards can be used to exchange ideas. At this time the use of features like conferenc-
ing, video, and instant messaging for crowdsourcing is rare. This might change over
time given the fact that video is gaining ground as a medium of expression over the
current text-and-images internet.
1.4
The Cost of Crossing Boundaries
The two aspects that defne an organization are collaboration and the fact
that there is a boundary between the company and its environment. Ever
since the internet caught on, there has been talk of it sounding the end of
organizations: The idea is that thanks to the internet, individuals should be
able to work together in the same way they could within an organization, but
without the need for corporate overhead such as management and legal
structures. So far this hasnt proven true, and it doesnt look like it will come
true anytime soon.
It is worthwhile to see what is happening to this external boundary: what is
inside the company and what is outside. What defnes you, and what sets
you apart from the competition?
27
In 1937, Ronald Coase wrote a treatise called The Nature of the Firm. In this
book, he examines the way markets operate, and focuses specifcally on the
question whether a certain economic task will be performed by the organ-
ization itself, or whether it will be left to the market. For this research and
other related topics, Mr. Coase eventually won a Nobel Prize over 50 years
later.
8
The most important question Mr. Coase tries to answer in his book is why
organizations exist. Why is it not always cheaper to let the market fll a need?
If an ideal free market will set the benchmark price for a commodity accord-
ing to competition among suppliers, why would any company choose to hire
people instead of bidding their needs to this market? Why cant we crowd-
source every aspect of every enterprise? Why does it pay to hire people and
let them work within company boundaries instead of letting a collection of
freelancers do the work? The answer to these questions lies in the concept
of transaction costs: even IF a market were ideal (and more and more it
seems that not all markets reach the ideal state), the cost of the pricing
mechanism and other costs will make it too costly to tender every task to the
market. Pricing costs are the costs expended to fnd the correct service, to
negotiate a price and to buy and control the service. All this takes effort, and
it makes the price of the service consumed higher than the market price of
the value provided by the service.
As an example, repeatedly fnding a suitable programmer who will update
your website with new business functionality, and reaching a new agreement
with that programmer every time, will, in the long run, probably be more
expensive than hiring a programmer and doing away with the constant rene-
gotiation. The same principle is valid at all levels: the action of outsourcing
itself is costly, thus challenging the business case for outsourcing.
Ronald Coase also noted that the larger an organization becomes, the higher
the internal cost of coordination and the risk of mistakes will become,
shifting the balance in favor of the market again. He realized that companies
will expand until the case for further expansion is no longer favorable. This
in turn has led to the formulation of Coases inverse law, which states that
these days any organization will shrink as long as the cost to do something
inside the company is higher than the cost of doing something on the open
market. If some specialized company can maintain your website at a lower
8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Coase.
28
cost than your own IT department, there will be a push towards moving
these activities outside the organization.
There is some debate as to what the impact of internet and information tech-
nology is on transaction costs. IT could perhaps add to the transaction costs,
by overwhelming the buyer with information to sort through or by making it
diffcult to consume a specifc service due to integration issues. Generally IT
is believed to decrease transaction cost, making markets more effcient and
making the choice to run parts of your business as a service more logical.
For some markets, technology will bring more transparency, which will
decrease transaction costs almost immediately. It will be easier to fnd the
right service or product, fnd the right price and determine the right contract.
In the case of cloud computing, the argument can also be made that the mar-
ket will start to offer more and more granular services that challenge the
assumption that internal is cheaper than external on many new levels.
With changing transaction costs and new services being offered on the mar-
ket, any organization that needs to be competitive will be asking, why are
we a company and should we do this ourselves. This is the reason why
companies are partnering and collaborating in value chains: to fnd the right
balance between transaction costs (between the parties collaborating) and
internal cost.
Serving Clients Together
A very specifc case of collaboration that occurs regularly is when two parties partner
to create a joint proposal. The two partners are trying to ofer a solution or product
that could only respond to the need with the input of both parties. Responding to
requests for information or bidding for contracts are situations where, under great
pressure, people from multiple companies try to create a winning proposal.
The best proposals are created when both parties share a vision of the end result and
there is a tight team working to combine the assets of both companies. Tools used
are mostly email (a sad reality is that this is probably still the most-used tool in these
cases), portals and conference calls. Usually there is a trigger-and-response system
to fnd the best solutions (Does anyone know of any solution to this problem) and
a strictly coordinated efort to compose a coherent deliverable (You are responsible
for answering questions 1 and 5). The process tends to start in a more free-format
style (solution visioning) and become more practical towards the deadline. For more
complex proposals, a project management tool will be used to track progress and
dependencies.
29
It is interesting to note that the people working together in these joint proposal teams
usually work as individuals, all trying hard to create a winning deliverable. Later in
the process, the legal department and management will take a more corporate role
and look at the partnership and contract side of the collaboration: is what we are
ofering balanced, who gets what, and how will we deliver together.
If both parties are equal partners, it raises the question of who will support the col-
laborative tools. There is a good case to be made for using a third party provider (in
the cloud), thereby allowing both parties equal access.
Competition in Government?
But what if you are working for the government? Are you competing, too?
Not surprisingly perhaps, yes. While in any government agency there might
be little or no competition at the highest level, at many other levels there is
competition. There may be competition between agencies to win execution
tasks (and corresponding budget allotment), and there may also be competi-
tion with the open market. The responsibility for national defense may rest
solely with the state, but supporting the HR for the employees who work in
defense could be open for competition on an open market. Providing social
security might be the responsibility of the government, but printing and
mailing monthly statements could be performed by parties outside the gov-
ernment. (And at any time, if the transaction cost of outsourcing becomes
too high, the government may decide to start competing: if we can do it
cheaper in-house, we will.)
The Reality of Crossing Boundaries
Cloud and cross-boundary collaboration are a natural ft: if information is
fowing between companies, using a third-party provider will be a logical
step. The old marketplaces and business hubs were precursors that led us to
realize that whenever we work together, we do it outside the boundaries of
both organizations. If we want to involve multiple parties, the trust and iden-
tity issues can sometimes be solved more easily in an impartial forum.
There are some thorny questions related to the cross-boundary aspects of cloud
and collaboration. Most of these have to do with the fact that corporate data
may also reside outside the corporate domain, leading to questions about con-
30
fdentiality, corporate governance and traceability. Also, as the maintenance
and operation is outside your control, reliability and recoverability demand
extra attention. Evidently some data is best NOT left to the cloud, and some
scenarios are still best run from your own software. This means that organiza-
tions will adopt a mixed model where a combination of software and services
is used to create the best, and most reliable, support for the end-user. The deci-
sions as to what may go to the cloud and what should remain on-premises are
based upon the issues described, but also upon a more strategic question of an
entirely different caliber: namely, what is your competitive advantage?
1.5
Conclusion
Cloud computing has become one of the scenarios for provisioning IT. It is
attractive on many levels, but it also has some intriguing and thorny issues
associated with it. Collaboration is the essence of an organization, and has
been traditionally under-supported by technology. Cloud computing and
collaboration offer a combination where the actual use is paramount, putting
the user back in control, and where boundaries are no longer obstacles. In
the following chapters, we will examine the trends that shape contemporary
business reality and we will see how collaboration on a grand scale has an
impact on how organizations evolve. Topics such as technological discover-
ies, competition versus collaboration, and transparency will be covered, and
we will discuss the new nature of the frm.
31
Case Stimmt AG
Case: Stimmts Jump to SaaS-Powered Collaboration Helps Consultancy
to Practice What it Preaches
Collaborating in the Cloud an Ideal Strategy for Small Consultancy
In no sector has collaborative business supported by Software as a Service been
embraced more enthusiastically than among small businesses. A look at the SaaS-
collaboration strategy adopted by Stimmt AG, a 15-person Swiss consulting frm
specializing in user interfaces, shows why.
The company was struggling with a Lotus Notes platform that had to run on a mix
of Windows and Mac laptops, requiring almost constant maintenance. And the fact
that Stimmts employees often work from their homes or from customer sites, requir-
ing time-consuming replication of Notes data, made supporting the Notes infrastruc-
ture a bigger burden than a small frm like Stimmt could shoulder. Moreover, there
was little hope of collaborating with customers remotely.
When management fnally deemed the situation untenable in 2007, it considered two
options: a fully managed centralized IT environment hosted by a third party, or a
browser-based SaaS approach. Eventually, Stimmt selected the SaaS path for a few
reasons. Not only was the pricing more attractive, but Stimmt would beneft from
constant, and seamless, updates to whatever tools it selected, and SaaS applications
would aford employees the most fexibility in creating their own work environ-
ments.
Suite of SaaS tools Delivers Flexibility and Simplicity
With the decision made to standardize on SaaS applications, Stimmt chose a few
strategic tools that have become its de facto computing platform. Google Apps are
used for email and calendaring; an on-demand version of Confuence Wiki enables
internal and external collaboration, data storage, and the creation of real-time exec-
utive dashboards; Genius Enterprise Project supports project management; and
Longjump, a lower-cost alternative to Salesforce.com (less than one-sixth the monthly
subscription fee per user), serves not only as Stimmts CRM system, but also as an
on-demand application development platform that allows the company to build its
own on-demand apps. All of these tools are accessible to employees wherever they
are through a browser, and access to collaboration workspaces is easily provided to
customers.
If it sounds to security-obsessed technology executives like Stimmt threw caution to
the wind, to an extent it did by its own design. Founding Partner Lukas Karrer was
confdent that once the data was stored in this array of cloud applications, he could
trust the selected vendors to ensure the safety of Stimmts data. With employees
given a fxed budget to choose their own hardware and establish their own remote
32
infrastructures, he didnt feel there was any need to worry. All they need is a working
browser, says Karrer. I dont care about the rest. I dont really care about the lap-
tops or desktops our employees use. I dont care about the backups of the employees
laptops, because everything is in the cloud.
There were no setup costs for starting the various application subscriptions. It took
Karrer and one employee just two weeks last December to complete the whole migra-
tion process, extracting the most important data from Notes and importing it into
the new tools, then confguring the tools to meet Stimmts basic needs. Karrer esti-
mates the company invested about 5,000 and 20 full days of employee time
adjusting and customizing the tools to suit the frms business processes. He contin-
ues to devote about one day a month to managing those customizations.
Elegant Environment Boosts Employee Morale, Impresses Customers
The results of Stimmts SaaS/collaboration strategy have been transformative. The
companys newfound mobility allows data access from any location. The scalable
business environment makes it a snap to add new people, and subscriptions can be
added or canceled on the fy. The company is getting more work completed, and its
doing so more simply and efciently. And all this added functionality hasnt forced
any additional technology spending. I didnt reduce IT costs, but I greatly enhanced
functionality, and I greatly enhanced usability for our employees and clients, says
Karrer.
Adoption hasnt been an issue. The staf had grown so frustrated with Notes that
team meetings had digressed into a stream of complaints about the companys
technology. Employees have embraced the new suite of tools, and the complaining
has ceased, causing an ecstatic Karrer to proclaim, Morale has skyrocketed.
Thats not to say there havent been lessons to learn along the way. Karrer says hes
seen that some SaaS vendors seem reluctant to evolve from the shrink-wrapped
software mentality. They need to adjust their approaches to service-level agree-
ments, and be quicker to incorporate customer feedback given the inherent fexibility
of their products. But hes also learned that SaaS enables him to be much more
experimental, as correcting mistakes is much simpler.
Perhaps the best and most unexpected result is the feedback from Stimmts cus-
tomers, who are all in awe of the elegance of the frms technology environment. Its
an ideal image-builder for a company that specializes in helping clients design usable
interfaces. They can see that its so easy to work with these tools, says Karrer.
Youve got to practice what you preach.
33
2
The Impact of Technological Revolutions
2.1
Introduction
We have seen that there is considerable pressure on companies to improve
performance, especially in this economic climate. In this book we are looking
at collaboration, the very essence of organizations, and cloud computing,
which is a model for provisioning technology. So how does technology help
business, and how does business beneft from changes in technology? In this
chapter we will show what the effect is of technological revolutions, and we
will demonstrate that these are indeed special times that warrant a closer
look at collaboration.
Management guru Peter Drucker (19092005) was originally a writer. In
1943, he was asked by the management of General Motors to report on work-
foor practices. However, numerous employees kept a wary eye on Drucker.
They greatly mistrusted him. They were especially worried about what he
might say to management behind their backs. Surely, this could only have
negative consequences?
To gain their cooperation, Drucker promised them that all his observations
would appear in book form. The tale of the work foor would therefore not
be mindlessly fled away in a report. In the end, the publication resulted in
his bestseller, The Concept of the Corporation, a book in which Drucker elab-
orates his far-reaching ideas about decentralized decision-making.
Peter Drucker was a visionary, someone who was far ahead of his time and
one of the few who had a clear perspective on the future of companies. Many
other works have come from his pen over the years. The central concern of
his writing remains the manner in which management has to change its
decision-making practices by placing progressively greater trust in the
observations and decisions emanating from the work foor and streaming up
to the organizations higher layers. Such changes in management thinking
are often underpinned by technological innovation. Drucker elaborated on
34
these ideas in his 1993 The Post-Capitalist Society,
1
encapsulating them in the
following statement:
Every few hundred years in Western history there occurs a sharp transformation.
Within a few short decades, society rearranges itself; its worldview (paradigm), its
basic values, its social and political structures, its arts, its key institutions. Fifty years
later there is a new world.
2.2
The Delicate Balance Between Technology and Community
Technology changes society. This mostly occurs in very small ways, which
are nearly imperceptible, but sometimes they are ground-breaking and
immense, turning the entire world on its head. Such upheaval occurred with
the introductions of the train, car, airplane, steel industry and steam engine.
Each had an enormous and revolutionary impact on society.
We are now, once again, standing on the verge of a fundamental transforma-
tion, a paradigm shift (such as it is elegantly labeled) that will change the
world as we know it for good. The internet and its underlying technology are
responsible for this radical upheaval.
The way in which we search for information and share it with each other has
changed; online search engines and Wikipedia have become the accepted
instruments for this activity. Listening to music is now a different experience
than it has been in the past. No longer do we collect vinyl records or plastic
CDs; now we use online stores in order to place our music collection of thou-
sands of songs on our portable mp3 players. Hyves, MySpace, Facebook,
Twitter and FriendFeed are the new ways of briefy communicating with
each other. These social networks have replaced what has now become tra-
ditional email. We no longer buy books in the bookstore but acquire them
from Amazon. We set up our own store with the help of eBay. And some time
ago we stopped watching television by sitting in front of a colored screen at
a scheduled time; instead we individually click on our favorite programs at
YouTube, use TiVo, the TV stations website or download them (often ille-
gally) from peer-to-peer networks.
1 Peter F. Drucker, The Post-Capitalist Society, 1993.
35
2 The Impact of Technological Revolutions
The Convergence of Knowledge
Compared to previous technological revolutions, there is one big discernible
difference: current technology is causing various areas of knowledge to
merge. The exact consequences of this fusion are still unknown, but it is
certain that these effects will be felt by people, companies and organizations
in general. Our entire society is affected.
Computer
Science
Articial
Intelligence
Economics
Law
Socio-cultural
Media
Ecology
Sociology
Biology
Psychology
Mathematics
Web
Engineering
Figure 2.1: Web Science Research Initiative Map of Fields of Knowledge
Figure 2.1 comes from the website of the Web Science Research Initiative,
2

set up by World Wide Web founder Tim Berners-Lee. This organization aims
to chart the ways in which the internet is changing our society, and it does
so by examining how various felds of knowledge are unifying.
One of the direct consequences of this evolving merger of knowledge is that
we are rediscovering people, members of society with whom we lost touch
long ago. Long before the industrial revolution, the farmer and the baker
knew precisely what they might expect from each other. The farmer worked
the land and the four from his harvested grain ended up at the baker, who
then baked the farmers bread. If the farmer were not satisfed with the taste
2 http://webscience.org.
36
of the bread, he would complain directly to the baker in order to have him
modify the recipe. The interaction was an entirely simple form of collabora-
tion based on direct communication.
The industrial revolutions fascination with maximum effciency made sure
that people only worried about their own tasks and never, or seldom, got
together to deal with all the types of problems on the work foor. The balance
between technology and community was disturbed so that it tilted to the
advantage of technology. As the German thinker Karl Marx astutely states
in his book Das Kapital (1867):
In handicrafts and manufacture, the workman makes use of a tool, in the factory,
the machine makes use of him.
3
As a direct consequence of this change, people grew distant from one another.
This dissociation undoubtedly presented business operators with an enticing
opportunity. In gaining control over the new technologies, they could seize
power and infict their whims and fancies on their customers. Companies
could impose their will on consumers by claiming to know what was good
for them. The frst assembly line, enabling Henry Ford to sell an enormously
large number of cars, is a perfect example of this thinking. In a sense, he
invented the wheel.
Internet technology is shifting the manner in which companies and people
communicate and collaborate with each other back to the more even keel that
we had previously enjoyed. Consumers are being taken more seriously. Their
voices are being heard. Once again, there is a dialogue between both parties,
between producer and consumer. The prosumer a term launched by Alvin
Toffer
4
to describe consumers who can fll their own needs using technol-
ogy is a consumer who counts.
Consumers are Demanding Unique Experiences
For some time now, consumers have no longer been fxated on mere posses-
sions but have become concerned with total and unique experiences. Con-
sumers are demanding a say in the processes that ultimately yield goods or
3 Das Kapital, pt. IV, ch. 13. sect. 4.
4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Tofler.
37
services. The system is the product.
5
Consumers strive to play a part in this
process of collective value creation. A product, service or brand must be
customized so that it contributes to their personal identity.
Call them the weapons of mass collaboration. These changes, among others, are
ushering us toward a world where knowledge, power and productive capability will
be more dispersed than at any time in our history a world where value creation will
be fast, fuid and persistently disruptive. A world where only the connected will sur-
vive. A power shift is underway, and a tough new business rule is emerging: harness
the new collaboration or perish.
6
We are discussing collaboration and technology. In particular, we talk about
the ways in which technology can be used to facilitate collaboration, not just
among people but also among companies and even applications.
As indicated above, technology is causing us to enter a new phase in collec-
tive interaction, changing our society for good. To properly understand what
this new form of collaboration looks like, we will frst examine the past and
study the consequences that a new technology has for people, commercial
companies or any other kind of organization.
2.3
Technologys Poisoned Chalice
The introduction of new technology always generates resistance. In the
beginning, a discovery is only embraced by a small group of people. When
more and more people adopt the technology, the tipping point
7
is ulti-
mately reached and the technology becomes commonplace.
For a technology to be widely accepted it must frst overcome several hurdles.
The introduction of a new technology renders another technology obsolete.
The companies that were proftable as a result of this older technology will
not easily give up their market share, sticking to old technology and inhibit-
ing innovation. Every innovation also has its advantages and disadvantages,
some of which are not always readily foreseeable and only become discern-
5 http://richardsona.squarespace.com/main/2006/6/15/motorola-q-snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-
victory2.html (see also Chapter 3).
6 Don Tapscott, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, 2006.
7 Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Little Brown, 2000.
38
ible at a later stage. One of the frst people to refect on the negative conse-
quences of new technologies was the philosopher Socrates.
Legend of King Thamus and the God Thoth
About 370 years before the Common Era
according to the Western calendar, Greek
philosopher Plato (427347 BC) commit-
ted to papyrus his account of a dialogue
between his teacher, Socrates (470
399 BC) and a certain Phae drus. In this
dialogue, Socrates discusses the legend of
King Thamus and the god Thoth, who
was renowned as a great inventor.
8
According to the Egyptians, Thoth was
the founder of knowledge, religion, phi-
losophy and magic. The Greeks later
added an even more impressive list of
discoveries. According to them, he alone
was more or less responsible for the ori-
gins of all felds of knowledge, including
astronomy, astrology, mathematics, geometry, medicine, theology, reading
and writing. All these disciplines were said to have sprouted from Thoths
brain.
Thoth did not want to keep all knowledge to himself. He wanted to share it
with humanity. In an audience with King Thamus, he tried to convince the
king of the virtue of his latest discoveries. Thoth was especially enthusiastic
about writing. According to him, writing would improve both the memory
and the wisdom of the Egyptian people. To the gods dismay, the king showed
no interest. In fact, he said to Thoth:
Most ingenious Thoth, one man has the ability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of
their usefulness or harmfulness to their users belongs to another; and now you, who
are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power
the opposite of that which they really possess. For this invention will produce forgetful-
8 Source: http://www.philipcoppens.com/thoth_01.jpg.
Figure 2.2: Thoth
8
39
ness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their
memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of
themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented
an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of
wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will
therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and
hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.
9
The legend of King Thamus and the god Thoth does not just present the
positive or negative consequences of writing. It also draws attention to the
possible destructive impact of technology on communities and on humanity
in general. A new technology can either provide a community with an enor-
mous boost or bring about its immediate destruction.
Technology is a Tyranny
In recounting this tale, Socrates anticipates the ideas of French sociologist,
philosopher and theologian Jacques Ellul (19121994), who published a book
called La Technique ou lEnjeu du Sicle in 1954 (the English title is The Tech-
nological Society). In this work, Ellul explains how he regards technology as
an element that disrupts society. In his eyes, technology is a tyranny for
humanity.
What we are witnessing at the moment is a rearrangement of the world in an
intermediate stage; the change is not in the use of a natural force but in the
application of technique to all spheres of life.
Technology Leads to Self-Amputation
The prophet of our electronic age, Marshall McLuhan (19111980),
10
made a
similar pronouncement in 1964 when he coined the maxim the medium is
the message.
11
According to McLuhan, the content of the message is not very
important. Rather, the underlying technology (the medium) has far more
9 Phaedrus 274e-275b in Plato, Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge,
MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.
10 Hans Achterhuis labels McLuhan as the prophet of our electronic era in his series of lectures Mensbeeld
en techniek (Portrayal of man and technology), ninth Socrates lecture, 1992.
11 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, McGraw Hill, 1964.
40
signifcant consequences for the proximate surroundings: We shape our
tools and thereafter our tools shape us.
In McLuhans view, technology is an extension of the human body. For
instance, the car has replaced peoples feet. Thanks to the car, we are able
to move from A to B much more quickly, while also being sheltered from a
heavy downpour. Increased mobility and comfort are certainly two of the
most evident advantages of using a car.
Unfortunately, technology also has disadvantages. When a technology is
used excessively and even to the point of overuse, it results in a form of self-
amputation that unquestionably has negative effects. In the case of the car,
driving has led to less walking, reduced muscle strength in the legs and cor-
respondingly augmented problems in relation to health and obesity. The
number of fatal and non-fatal accidents has also consequently risen due to
motor-vehicle use. And the air we breathe is contaminated by the large
quantities of exhaust spewed out by the internal combustion engine, giving
rise to all types of lung disease. Technology does not therefore only affect us
as individuals but it has consequences for the community as a whole.
2.4
Six Technological Revolutions
Technology has a large impact on people and organizations (commercial or
any other kind) and therefore on society at large. An uneasy equilibrium
exists between technology and community. In the past, the effects of new
technologies on society have been studied by various researchers.
One of the frst scholars devoted to this feld was the Russian economist Nikolai
Dmitriyevitch Kondratiev (18921938).
12
At the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury, he investigated the relationship between the price of goods and invest-
ment behavior. His research, based on data from the period of 1789 to 1922,
revealed a series of four wave movements in the economy, each with its own
peak and valley, boom and bust. Strikingly, these trends displayed consistent
features, each of the cycles encompassing a period of ffty to sixty years.
12 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kondratiev_wave.
41
Kondratiev announced his fndings to the world in The Major Economic
Cycles, a book published in 1925.
13
His research clearly demonstrated that
the waves were based on the accumulation of fundamental innovations, each
underlying a corresponding technological revolution. Technological develop-
ment was not evolutionary but revolutionary, as it occurred in jumps associ-
ated with fundamental transformations of industry and the economy, which
affected all of society.
His insights, which were controversial at the time, did not earn him any
gratitude. In 1938, Josef Stalin gave the order for the scholars arrest, and he
was executed shortly afterwards.
Kondratiev I
P
1800 1850 1900 1950 1990
P
R
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3FDFTTJPO
D
E
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*NQSPWFNFOU
4UFBN&OHJOF
$PUUPO
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$IFNJTUSZ
1FUSPDIFNJDBMT
"VUPNPCJMFT
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R D E
II III IV V
Figure 2.3: Kondratiev Wave
14
A ffth wave has since been detected, and there are now fve identifable
historical trends:
15
The frst boom period approximately encompasses the years from 1780 to
1815, an era that saw basic innovations in the textile industry, the use of
water power, and the construction of ports, canals and paved roads.
The second peak more or less coincides with the period from 1845 to 1875
and involves such basic innovations as the railway, gas lighting and the
telegraph.
The third upswing roughly covers the years between 1890 and 1916,
involving innovations in the electronics and automobile industry, as well
as the emergence of chemistry.
13 N.D. Kondratiev, The Works of Nikolai D. Kondratiev, Pickering & Chatto Ltd., 1997.
14 Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Kondratief_Wave.gif.
15 Source: ESB no. 4245, p. 171; article by Alfred Kleinknecht, professor of innovation at Delft TU.
42
The fourth surge corresponds to the postwar period of 1944 to 1985 with
its rapid proliferation of long-lasting household consumer goods.
The ffth wave, which will likely cover the period from 1995 to 2020, is
driven by the innovations involved in numerous IT applications.
Britain Industrial Revolution (mocb|ocs, tocror|cs, cooo|sj
Each Revolution takes 40 to 60 years to spread across the world and reach maturity.
Each begins in a core country.
1771
Britain, USA,
Germany
Age of Steel and Heavy Engineering (c|ccrr|co|, cbcm|co|, c|v||, oovo|j 1875
Britain Age of Steam, Coal, Iron and Railways 1829
USA Age of Automobile, Oil, Petrochemicals and Mass Production 1908
USA Age of Information Technology and Telecommunications 1971
USA?, Europe?
Both?, Other?
Age of Biotech, Bioelectronics, Nanotechnology and New Materials? 20??
Figure 2.4: Five Technological Revolutions in 240 Years
A great more detail about these fve technological revolutions is provided by
Carlota Perez in her book Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital.
16

Her work is strongly infuenced by the great economist Joseph Schumpeter,
17

who was well known for his theory about Creative Destruction (the fact that
the old ways of doing things are endogenously destroyed and replaced by
new ways). Perez even adds a sixth revolution: the approaching revolution
that will be brought about by bio- and nanotechnology.
18
Technology Changes Ways of Collaborating
A technological innovation requires time in order to become commonplace
in a society. In the beginning, only a limited group of people will use a given
technology. Only time will tell whether this technology will or will not be
16 Carlota Perez, Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden
Ages, Edward Elgar Pub, 2003.
17 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schumpeter.
18 Source: http://www.slideshare.net/connectedurbandev/2-zz-carlota-perez-cud-lect-defdef.
43
embraced by everyone. That is why all technologies have their own adoption
curves.
Time
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Early
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Unfullled
Needs
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Figure 2.5: Adoption of Technology by Consumers
19
When a technology catches on, there is a chance that it will transform an
entire society. But a technology only has such an impact once every ffty to
sixty years. On these rare occasions, it is not only society that is impacted,
but the manner in which people are accustomed to working together is also
radically transformed.
In Why the Demise of Civilization May Be Inevitable,
20
Deborah Mackenzie
gives some thought to the ways in which society is changed by technology.
19 Source: P. Bosker and M. Boreel, Van Horen zeggen naar Willen hebben, VINT 2000.
20 Deborah Mackenzie, Why the Demise of Civilisation May Be Inevitable, New Scientist, April 2, 2008.
44
Figure 2.6 displays a number of diagrams representing the ways in which
collaborations evolve.
Hunter-Gatherer Early Civilisations Industrial Revolution Hybrid Networked
Figure 2.6: The Changing Shape of Society
Figure 2.6 makes it clear that two types of collaboration are dominant. The
traditional hierarchical forms, such as those that came into vogue with the
industrial revolution, and the network form which is now coming into use as
a consequence of the emergence of the World Wide Web. In terms of time,
we are currently in a transition phase in which companies are mostly adopt-
ing hybrid forms.
To understand the manner in which collaboration has evolved over time and
the ways in which collaboration is now being re-examined, the following
sections will reconsider two important economists who were responsible for
the development of the very frst corporate structures and the modes of col-
lective work adopted within the walls of these organizations.
The Invisible Hand of Adam Smith
Traces of an evolutionary theory based on natural selection can already be
found in early works on the economy. The magnum opus of economist Adam
Smith (17231790) entitled An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth
of Nations uses something akin to natural selection to explain the workings
of the free market. This book was frst published in 1776, just after the start
of the industrial revolution.
45
In the view of Adam Smith, the interests of the individual do not come before
the interests of the collective. To his mind, collaboration occurs automati-
cally. One person works as a farmer, the other as a baker. Together, they help
each other earn their livelihood. Working together comes naturally. It man-
ifests the effects of the invisible hand.
Taylorism
Frederic Winslow Taylor (18561915) was the frst person
who emphatically departed from this manner of collabo-
ration, which people had known for centuries. He let go of
Adam Smiths invisible hand and took up the part of the
rigidly organized system in which employees were given
little latitude.
Money Makes the World Go Around
21
Taylor was born in 1856 in Germantown, a part of Phil-
adelphia, Pennsylvania. He grew up in an affuent fam-
ily and was not surprised about the fact that there were
different classes of people in the world. When he reached
the age of twelve, his father took the entire family to
Europe for a trip lasting three years. Such a European
tour was not unusual for wealthy people at the time.
22
During this tour, Taylor learned for the frst time about
the ways in which money can be employed as a means to
infuence another persons behavior. In crossing the high
mountains of the Alps, the family was stranded in the village of Finsterminz.
23

The local bridge had been largely swept away, preventing access to the pass.
Over time, the local population had made a few half-hearted attempts to reach
the pass, none of which went very far. The family would have been unable to
complete its crossing of the Alps, except that failure was not a part of the
vocabulary of Frederics father. Pulling out his wallet, he was able to motivate
the residents of the village so that the entire family and their baggage was on
the other side of the pass the next day.
21 Line from the song Money, Money in the musical Cabaret.
22 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Frederick_Winslow_Taylor.jpg.
23 Source: http://www.pillowrock.com/ronnie/fwtaylor.htm.
Figure 2.7: Adam
Smith
Figure 2.8: Frederic
Winslow Taylor
22
46
I have you for your strength and mechanical ability, and we have other men paid for
thinking.
In 1911, Taylor published his revolutionary ideas about management. In his
book The Principles of Scientifc Management, he explains how business proc-
esses must be managed in a scientifc manner in order to promote stand-
ardization and effciency. His theories presented companies with the means
of skewing the balance of power in their favor. The manner in which con-
sumers and producers had been accustomed to dealing, and working, with
each other was consequently brought into question.
The Film Modern Times
Although Taylors original objectives where
quite idealistic, a great deal of opposition
was mounted against his theories. Putting
them into practice required a far-reaching
division of labor with little concern for peo-
ples social needs. The result was increasing
self-alienation (the top layers of Maslows
pyramid no longer being attainable) and
alienation from the end product.
24
One of the best known critical views of such
relentless industrialization is undoubtedly
the black and white movie Modern Times by
Charlie Chaplin. In this movie, Chaplin plays
his trademark character the little tramp, who
this time is an assembly-line worker being
subjected to the torments of the modern machine. It is interesting to note
that the idea for this movie was taken from a journalist who told Chaplin
about the depressed assembly line workers in a factory in Detroit.
Industrial Revolution
The industrial revolution caused the balance (the market equilibrium) in the
demand and supply model to shift in favor of producers. The use of machin-
ery enabled organizations to grow in size and scale, allowing them to serve
more customers simultaneously. The process caused employees to lose touch
with their end customers. Since they were cut off from direct feedback, they
24 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moderntimes.jpg.
Figure 2.9: Modern Times
24
47
had to rely on others who were closer to customers to coordinate the effec-
tiveness of their efforts and to indicate how they might better satisfy cus-
tomer wants.
The previous intimate collaboration between producer and consumer began
to fracture and eventually fell apart. Producers no longer had their ears
attuned to their customers but took control themselves. From then on, pro-
ducers of goods and services assumed that they best knew what consumers
wanted.
Deploying the resources of various mass media (newspapers, radio and tel-
evision), they imposed their will on consumers and were able to manipulate
them into making purchases. After all, producers felt that they knew best.
They very well knew (or so they thought) what consumers wanted and how
these wants were to be satisfed.
Efciency
With the growing size of organizations and resultant division into depart-
ments and duties, employees became increasingly further removed from the
ultimate end product. The entire business process was directed at the most
effcient realization of this good or service. As a result, employees had to
specialize in order to take responsibility for just one small task. Employees
were seemingly turned into nothing more than cogs in a machine, small
replaceable parts to be thrown on the scrap heap when expended.
Everything and everyone was placed in service of the end product, while any
interests of the individual were subsequently disregarded. This change on
the work foor reduced the feeling of responsibility that workers had felt for
the quality of the end product. They also became increasingly alienated from
co-workers and even from their own sense of self. The overview of the entire
business process was more diffcult to maintain, making it no longer possible
to intervene when calamities occurred. Likely Jacques Ellul, the above-men-
tioned French sociologist of technology, had this in mind when he coined the
term soulless effciency.
The inescapable conclusion is that the effort to realize the advantages of
scale and effciency caused workers to lose contact with customers. To put it
simply, there was no longer any time for collaboration between producer and
48
consumer. The essential input enabling the craftsmen of former times to be
(largely) self-directing was missing, and the corresponding expansion of the
management class therefore became inevitable.
2.5
Conclusion
Throughout history, we encounter various forms of collaboration both inside
and outside organizations. Technological innovations often underlie the
transition from one form to another, these revolutions disrupting the balance
between old and new, between technology and the community.
Thanks to the World Wide Web, we have again entered a transitional phase.
More and more companies are abandoning centralized, hierarchical organ-
izational forms and are switching to a model that uses decentralized network
structures even extending beyond company walls. Another catalyst for this
change is the fact that, in contrast with previous transformations, diverse
felds of knowledge are now undergoing a process of convergence. For the
frst time in human history, everyone has nearly unimpeded access to all
information. The resulting impact of the internet on society is therefore
larger than anything previously experienced and consequently distinguishes
the present from all previous phases (i.e. technological revolutions).
The following chapter will further explore the effects that the new technol-
ogy is having on society, companies and humanity in general. A distinctive
feature is that all parties are virtually unable to hide anything anymore NO
MORE SECRETS! We are entering an age in which transparency, openness
and cross-boundary collaboration will be crucial for the continued existence
of companies.
49
Case REAAL Verzekeringen
Case: REAAL Verzekeringen Turns to Collaboration as It Contends with
Seismic Changes in Its Business
Wholesale Evolution of Channels Pushes Company to Work Differently
After nearly 120 years in business, REAAL Verzekeringen, the 4 billion-a-year insur-
ance arm of Dutch fnancial services group SNS REAAL, has seen a profound shift in
the way insurance is delivered. The traditional approach of relying on brokers as the
main distribution channel is giving way more and more to web-based self-service,
sales through larger partners who ofer complementary services, and growing oppor-
tunities as a value added service sold by SNS REAALs banking unit.
The face-to-face relationship between brokers and consumers is being replaced by
electronic channels, and that means the services that are so crucial to an insurance
company such as providing quotes and processing claims are increasingly reliant
on technology for their delivery. Because REAAL acquires Insurance companies to
spur growth, it also needs to speed up the process of integrating acquired companies
into its infrastructure. That means the technology has to enable the collaborative
processes that support such key business activities. Throw in the fact that growing
numbers of employees are working from home, and all these processes have to be
extended to support coordination among multiple locations.
This fundamental transition has highlighted the need for REAAL Verzekeringen to
look for new, more efcient ways to get things done. Specifcally, it is injecting col-
laborative technologies into its business processes. The company needs its employ-
ees to be able to more efectively brainstorm new products, coordinate cross-selling
eforts and process claims, so the company is supporting its employees in these
eforts by making it easy for them to share information and knowledge across organ-
izational and geographic boundaries. It also wants to provide an external collabora-
tive environment where it can work with partners to efciently pair products and
services.
Enabling a New Way to Work
To accomplish this, REAAL has initiated a broad initiative to achieve the New Way
to Work. In this initiative, there are many projects that will change and improve the
way REAAL works. It will change the way in which people work together, and how
the company will innovate. The program addresses anything from the physical envi-
ronment (buildings, physical workspace, etc.) to the social and HR aspects.
A relatively small but important part of this broad initiative addresses the technology
used to collaborate. For this part, REAAL turned to Microsoft technologies (SharePoint/
Ofce Communications Server). It embarked on this three-year efort to establish a
50
collaboration infrastructure six months ago, when it made an early incarnation of its
SharePoint environment available to a strategic project group of 250 employees.
The company has 10-15 people working on a daily basis, in conjunction with consult-
ants and experts from Microsoft, to fesh out the design of an environment that will
support all of SNS REAALs 7,000 employees. Plans call for the frst full implementa-
tions to start rolling out in the frst half of 2009 with pilots centered on departmental
groups of 80-100 people. Barring unforeseen problems, REAAL intends to proceed
with a larger-scale rollout later in 2009 and into 20102011.
Potential Internal and External Benefts Becoming Apparent
Early indications of the impact of this technology havent done anything to slow the
efort, says Kees Tuijnman, enterprise architect at REAAL. One of the benefts Tuijn-
man sees is that the technology is already enabling improvements in the information
fows. The resulting benefts have fueled optimism for what the results of the overall
program will do for the company.
The IT department, which was an early adopter of some of the elements of this New
Way of Work, was also among the frst to see what can change. For instance, IT
relies upon a structure in which employees with similar skill sets such as software
development or design are grouped together. That makes it difcult to transfer
those skills between groups. The new technology and new focus on collaboration
helps IT to work in virtual teams in which the various skills are clustered together,
making IT projects a more collaborative pursuit.
As the program is introduced throughout the company, the efects are expected to
become visible, including cost reduction, productivity improvements, more efective
talent acquisition, more efcient knowledge sharing, and a boost in employee satis-
faction. The company is not only looking to improve the internal workings of the
organization but is also extending their vision to external collaborators. We have a
number of large distribution partners with whom we connect selling processes and
work on innovation, says Tuijnman. We want a better exchange of ideas, and a way
to implement those ideas into new products.
51
3
The New Nature of the Firm
3.1
Introduction
In the previous chapter, the ambiguous role of technology was discussed in
light of several converging trends. We saw that these trends spell great
changes that only happen every ffty or sixty years. In this chapter, we will
bring the discussion closer to the organization and explore what competition
and collaboration look like, and how they could change. We will see how
collaboration might in some cases even take the place of competition, chang-
ing the essentials of survival and competition forever.
Life is one long struggle, wherever you look. Elements of competition are to
be found everywhere. The survival drive is not only deeply rooted in the
animal kingdom around us but it also permeates our own society. Of course,
it is most evident in the area of sport, but we also fnd it in politics, religion,
education, the business community and language (good-better-best). And
even in art! Why is one painter a great master and another one not?
In this environment there is always the urge to score or to exhibit that you
are better than others, often at the cost of others. There are good reasons
behind the impulse to kill or be killed! One of the frst persons to study this
phenomenon in detail was the biologist and naturalist Charles Darwin (1809
1882).
The Voyage of Discovery on Board HMS Beagle
Charles Robert Darwin frst became interested in science during his medical
studies in the Scottish city of Edinburgh, which he discontinued after two
years. His father then sent him to Cambridge to pursue religious studies.
While in Edinburgh Darwin had developed an interest in animal life. One
of his great passions was to collect and categorize all types of beetles. At
Cambridge, he was given the chance to pursue his passion by taking courses
in botany and geology, in addition to studying theology.
52
At the end of 1831, Charles Darwin obtained a position as a naturalist on the
British naval ship HMS Beagle. His task would be conducting geological
research on South-American coastal regions. After convincing his father
about this unique opportunity, he was given permission to interrupt his
study, enabling him to depart on the Beagle from Plymouth harbor on
December 27, 1831.
The boat was commanded by Captain Robert Fitzroy (18051865), who had
been given the task of surveying the southern point of South America in
more detail. The commission was expected to take two years. However, the
trip lasted longer than expected. The voyage included visits to New Zealand,
Australia and South Africa, in addition to South America. The ship didnt
return to England until 1836, fve years after its departure.
When he departed, Charles Darwin was
only 22 years old. No one could have sus-
pected what an enormous impact he
would have on the history of humanity.
It was on board the Beagle that Darwin
was inspired to formulate his theory of
how evolution works via natural selec-
tion, which is still considered one of the
most important scientifc works ever
written.
Figure 3.1: Charles Darwin
1
How a Finch Explains Human Evolution
The Galapagos Islands, an archipelago off the west coast of South America,
played a crucial role in the creation of Darwins theory. To Darwins surprise,
different species of fnches were living on the various islands. How was it
possible that such great diversity could have arisen among these fnches
when the islands lay so close together?
Since it could be assumed that the birds few from island to island in their
search for food, distinctions among the birds should not occur. Yet, observa-
1 Source: http://fickr.com/photos/cpurrin1/sets/72157594332798029/.
53
3 The New Nature of the Firm
tion proved otherwise. The birds on each individual island had distinctive
beaks. Darwins research demonstrated that the different food consumed by
the birds on each island was responsible for the different beak forms.
A Finch Eats What Its Beak Can Fetch
Each different type of beak had developed into a unique instrument designed
to consume the available food in the easiest manner. One fnch had a sharp,
pointed beak in order to pick seeds out of pinecones; another had a short beak
to facilitate the plucking of insects from branches. The fnches had adapted
to the conditions in which they were living. Over time, they had evolved.
The Origin of Species
Three years after the Beagles return, the frst edition of Charles Darwins
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection appeared bearing the
subtitle or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.
2
Darwin
frst committed his theory of evolution to paper in this book. He explains how
natural selection is responsible for the fact that life on earth is divided into
various species. In the struggle for survival, the individuals best adapted to
conditions around them will survive and reproduce.
The publication of this book exposed Darwin to attacks from all angles. In
particular, the Catholic Church took steady aim at his ideas, regarding his
book as a specifc challenge to the existence of God. After all, Darwin was
arguing that humans were not the offspring of Adam and Eve but the
descendants of apes. Only after his death in 1882 was the value of his views
permanently recognized. His fellow scientists made sure that Darwin
received a state funeral in Westminster Abbey. Eight years after his demise,
the Royal Society of London even established the prize for scientifc work
that bears his name (Darwin Medal) and is still being awarded annually.
(Incidentally, another award that bears his name, the Darwin Awards,
3
are
much more frivolous and are posthumously awarded to people who died
doing stupid things, thereby proving themselves unft for reproduction and
removing their genes from the gene pool at the same time.)
2 Beginning with this sixth reprinting, the books title was shortened to simply The Origin of Species.
3 http://www.darwinawards.com/.
54
Darwins theory of evolution has radically transformed our worldview, por-
traying a world with which not everyone could identify. Captain Robert Fitz-
roy was literally ruined by Darwins ideas, which contradicted his strong
religious devotion. The idea that he had played an important role in Darwins
life and, accordingly, in the development of his theory of evolution drove him
mad, and ultimately to suicide.
The Right of Might
Darwins book popularized the notion of survival of the fttest.
4
In fact, the
term was originally coined by the economist Herbert Spencer. In his 1851
book Social Statics, Spencer states that, as long as the government does not
intervene, the best qualifed (read: richest) people will ultimately survive,
and a super civilization will be created from which the weaker groups have
been eliminated.
Darwin adopted this economic survival of the fttest theory in explaining
how natural selection functioned. He always meant that species adapt to (i.e.
ft better with) conditions in order to survive. If they are unable to adapt,
then they simply become extinct.
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that sur-
vives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.
However, the notion survival of the fttest took on its own life after publica-
tion of his book. Increasingly often, the emphasis was placed on the fact that
survival was only a question of winning a struggle between one individual
and another. Might is right, so to speak. Darwin did not, however, have this
meaning in mind. In fact, his work demonstrates that evolution does not only
operate through survival by fghting, but (and perhaps predominantly) by
mutual collaboration among various species.
In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to col-
laborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.
4 Source: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fttest.
55
Not Fighting but Collaborating
The biologist Lynn Margulis also disputes the notion that a given species can
only evolve at the cost of others. Evolution does not just involve competition;
it also involves collaboration, interaction and interdependence of organisms.
She refected on forms of collaboration in nature as long ago as 1966, discuss-
ing them in her paper, The Origin of Mitosing Eukaryotic Cells. In it, she
demonstrates, among other things, how cells can be created from the sym-
biosis of various species of bacteria. Since then other theories have emerged
as to how multicellular organisms started as complex collaboration between
single-celled organisms.
5
Lynn Margulis subsequently married the world-renowned astronomer Carl
Sagan. From this marriage she gave birth to two sons, one of them being the
science-fction author Dorion Sagan. The two of them co-published her 2001
book Marvellous Microbes, a work in which she refocuses on the fact that
evolution is not driven by competition but by cooperation:
Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking.
On Bullthorn Acacias
Living networks not only occur at the cellular level but also at higher levels
of complexity among various species. A good example is the story of the bull-
thorn acacia (Acacia cornigera), a plant that grows in the tropical rainforests
of South America. The species is named for the large hollow thorns on its
branches, but is best known for the symbiotic relationship that it shares with
creatures in its proximate environment. In particular, the hollow thorns pro-
vide ideal shelter for a species of ant (Pseudomyrmex ferruginea), and the
material that the plant discharges is an excellent food source for these ants.
In exchange for this food, the ants protect their host against attacks from
outside. As soon as other animals attempt to feast on this plant, the ants alert
each other by dispersing a pheromone and join in the struggle against the
outsider en masse. Possessing a long and hard tongue, the insects are even
able to frighten off larger animals by giving them venomous bites.
5 http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/the_choanofagellate_genome_an.php.
56
Fittest Through Collaboration
There is a lot of collaboration in nature, and in some instances species that
collaborate with (sometimes unlikely) partners stand a better chance of sur-
vival. Ants and the bullthorn tree have created an intricate interdependency
for the beneft of both. Fierce lions hunt together with other lions. They are
partnering to catch bigger game than they ever could alone, but in return
they will have to share the prey and obey group etiquette. Zebra like to fock
together with giraffes to make use of the giraffes long necks: if the giraffes
run, so will the zebra. They have outsourced the lookout function, so to speak
(for free, even).
Whatever the nature of collaboration or cooperation between one or multiple
species, there is always a beneft to the survival or reproduction of at least
one of the species. Species that collaborate do so to survive a harsh world; or
they collaborate to compete for scarce resources. Whenever the environmen-
tal pressures are high, when there is great scarcity or a lot of competition,
collaboration is a winning approach in the game of life. It all comes together
in the term ecosystems, where togetherness and interrelatedness are much
more important than the element of competition. Could this also be true for
the market as an ecosystem of companies, consumers and suppliers?
3.2
A Society of Conversations
The previous chapter suggests that the industrial revolution put an end to
the ways that humans had been working together for centuries. The vitality
was taken out of work. The individual became only a small cog in the machin-
ery of the assembly line. Everyone had a job to do without having to think
too much about their surroundings.
With the introduction of the internet, this type of thinking has slowly begun
to change. Thanks to this new technology, people (or consumers) have
obtained a platform by means of which they can compel companies to take
their wishes into account. Companies must collaborate with consumers if
they want to continue in business at all.
In April 1999, four internet pioneers (Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc
Searls and David Weinberger) foresaw this turn of events. They formulated
their vision into a manifesto containing 95 avant garde propositions in which
57
they predicted how the business world would be irreversibly transformed in
the near future. The manifesto was published on a website named for the
manifesto: http://www.cluetrain.com. A transcript was quickly published as
a book in 2000 under the title The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business
as Usual.
A Self-Evident Truth
The very frst statement reads, Markets are conversations. This truism
should almost go without saying. After all, everyone has long known that
discussion and dialogue underlie all markets. Still, they often forget about
this basic fact over the course of time. When we look back on the last century,
we immediately see that the twentieth century was dominated by only a
handful of men, companies and countries. These were the elite, so to speak.
This elite was responsible for transforming markets into mere monologues.
They determined the message that people were allowed to hear, acting like
a corporate dictatorship.
At the dawn of the twenty-frst century, the above-mentioned manifesto
made it apparent that a fundamental leap forward was about to occur. The
book was the frst to proclaim the enormous potential of the World Wide
Web. A new world was dawning. And this world would no longer allow itself
to be dominated by a small group of people using outdated techniques and
strategies. This new world demands a new approach, a new form of manage-
ment, a new way of doing business, a new manner of collaborating.
Markets Are Conversations
Markets have always been conversations. They are places where demand
and supply come together in order to determine the prices of goods or serv-
ices. In an ideal market, producers and consumers have equal power to affect
the interplay of supply and demand. In an ideal market, producers and con-
sumers collaborate. That is the utopian ideal, which is not always what hap-
pens in practice.
Traditionally, the interaction of supply and demand is the cornerstone of the
value-creation process. In the pre-industrial age, this process of value deter-
mination functioned well because producers and consumers had access to
58
the same information. To put it more strongly, because they mostly lived in
small communities (villages), producers and consumers could meet every
day for discussion and negotiation. Consumers were able to provide direct
and immediate commentary, and the producer could take immediate action.
Producers and consumers had an especially intimate relationship, which
ultimately meant that they worked together to determine the value of a good
or service. A simple handshake was then suffcient to indicate that both par-
ties were satisfed.
Quantity
Supply
Demand
Market Equilibrium
P
r
i
c
e
Figure 3.2: Market Equilibrium
Naked Conversations
Consumers are in the midst of a conversation that isnt ours. The race is on to grow
ears to learn what they are saying.
John Hayes, CMO, American Express
With the dawning of the information age, a transition is underway. Informa-
tion technology gives consumers their voices back. Using all types of com-
munication (blogs, microblogs, forums, wikis, social networks, chatting, etc.),
they are again able to express their (dis)satisfaction.
In his book Naked Conversations, Robert Scoble shows how businesses are
being dragged into these conversations, almost against their will.
6
After all,
6 Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk
with Customers.
59
companies cannot afford to ignore a discussion when it involves their brand(s).
Before they know it, the viral effect of the web can create an enormous thunder
of negative voices against which the companys soothing words go unheard.
Robert Scoble focuses his book specifcally on the impact of weblogs on
organizations. The internet will not stand still and is, in fact, gaining momen-
tum. With the boost of Web 2.0 technologies a tremendous array of new
communication and collaboration options became available for companies,
all becoming part of one continuous conversation online. Figure 3.3 of the
Conversation Prism, by Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas, shows what the cur-
rent landscape of communication channels looks like.
7
(For a full-size ver-
sion of the diagram, refer to Figure 5.5.)
Conversations
Pictures
Social
Bookmarks
Comment &
Reputation
Crowdsourced
Content
Blog
Platforms
Blogs/Conversations
Blog Communities
Micromedia
Lifestreams
Specic to
Twitter
SMS/Voice
Social Networks
Niche Networks
Customers
Service Networks
Location
Video
Video Aggregation
Documents
Events
Music
Wiki
LiveCasting
Video & Audio
The Art of
Listening, Learning
& Sharing
4PVSDF#SJBO4PMJT+FTTF5IPNBT
Figure 3.3: The Conversation Prism
It is striking that conversations are now discernibly shifting toward the
lifestreaming phenomenon.
8
More and more users are employing communi-
cation tools to share (stream) their lives with family, friends and acquaint-
ances. This burgeoning popularity further increases the complexity facing
companies that are trying to participate in these discussions. How can cor-
7 http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/introducing-conversation-prism.html.
8 Jaap Bloem, Menno van Doorn and Sander Duivestein, Me the Media: Past, Present and Future of the
Third Media Revolution.
60
porations keep up with this type of fast talk? How can organizations make
the transition from the mechanical age of speed to the digital age of real
time?
9
Companies are now being forced to play with all their cards on the table.
Transparency and truthiness
10
have become the key terms for companies
making contact with their customers. No more secrets! Early warning about
the places where web discussions concerning a companys brand are occur-
ring is now essential. Such advanced detection enables companies to par-
ticipate in this discussion right from the start. The discussions then make
their way inside company walls, and collaborations are struck with outsiders,
especially those who are most critical of the company. We are moving from
a conversation economy into a conversation society.
Nicholas Carr comments on these naked conversations in his book The Big
Switch.
11
He notes that, By shifting power from institutions to individuals,
information processing machines can dilute and disturb control as well as
reinforce it. It is therefore very possible that when companies get involved
in the new social game, they do so in order to recover power once again.
Perhaps this even occurs surreptitiously, without consumers catching on.
From Speed to Real Time
We might already be beyond the age of speed, by moving into the age of real-time.
Ivan Illich (1996)
The fact that the relationships between consumers and companies are fun-
damentally changing as a result of information technology means that com-
panies have to approach their business processes differently. The struggle
for effciency is no longer as important, while real time is playing an ever-
larger role. Organizations must change from unwieldy, rigid, bureaucratic
monsters into fexible and adaptive organisms.
Change is the process by which the future invades our lives.
Alvin Tofler
9 Partial quote by Teemu Arina.
10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness.
11 Nicholas Carr, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google, London: W.W. Norton & Com-
pany Ltd., 2008.
61
What distinguishes our age from all those that have preceded it is the expo-
nentially increasing rate of change. Companies can no longer be complacent.
They must respond directly to the changes in their environment. The result-
ing complexity means that no company can operate on its own any longer. It
is impossible to take on this new world alone. The various members of the
business community must learn to think differently; they must join hands
and work together.
This collaboration can only succeed if each company makes the best possible
effort. Every company needs to concentrate on its own qualities and skills
on its own core competencies. When each company is prepared to change
its thinking, as described above, then the sum of the parts will exceed the
whole.
In the mechanical age now receding, many actions could be taken without too much
concern. Slow movement insured that the reactions were delayed for considerable
periods of time. Today the action and the reaction occur almost at the same time []
The restructuring of human work and association was shaped by the technique of
fragmentation that is the essence of machine technology. The essence of automation
technology is the opposite. It is integral and decentralist in depth, just as the machine
was fragmentary, centralist, and superfcial in its patterning of human relationships.
Marshall McLuhan
3.3
Management 2.0
The Future of Management
The emergence of information technology means that companies no longer
have to operate in a landscape of continuous change on their own. Collaborat-
ing with others makes it easier for them to respond to the continuous changes
occurring in the world around them. This world no longer stands still for any
length of time. A new market has been created which is open twenty-four
hours a day and seven days a week. Company management must therefore
adjust their strategies to suit this contemporary around-the-clock time.
62
In The Future of Management, Gary Hamel examines the ways in which man-
agers function inside organizations.
12
He says the following on the subject:
Managers focus on the value chain, the fow of producs and services through the
activities the company controls or infuences. Managers should focus on the qual-
ity and the experience of co-creation, not just on the quality of the products and
services of the company.
Hamel also examines the ways in which management has been keeping pace
with change in recent decades:
Compared to the the enormous changes in technology, lifestyle and geopolitics of
the last ffty years, management seems to have developed at a snails pace.
New Age of Innovation
The most recent book by C.K. Prahalad and M.S. Krishnan, The New Age of
Innovation, provides a detailed description of the reforms required of man-
agement. Prahalad formulates the new ways in which companies will have
to operate in the near future as follows:
Value is based on unique, personalized experiences of consumers. Firms 1.
have to learn to focus on one consumer and her experience at a time, even
if they serve 100 million consumers. The focus is on the centrality of the
individual (N=1).
No frm is big enough in scope and size to satisfy the experiences of one 2.
consumer at a time. All frms will access resources from a wide variety of
other big and small frms a global ecosystem. The focus is on access to
resources, not ownership of resources (R=G).
Customers are now demanding that goods or services they purchase should
be customized to their needs. The individual has become the demanding key
fgure in the transaction. No single company can service every individual
customer on its own. Collaborations must therefore be established around
the world in order to satisfy this multitude of needs.
12 Gary Hamel and Bill Breen, The Future of Management, Harvard Business School Press, 2007.
63
The economy of the industrial revolution was characterized by shortages.
Due to the Long Tail,
13
such scarcity no longer exists. Instead, there is
abundance!
14
The consequence for consumption is that the focus is no longer
on possession but has increasingly shifted to experience;
15
the focus is on
the perceptions and emotions that a product evokes. The modern smart
phones are outstanding examples of this way of thinking. Ultimately, a prod-
uct or service has to contribute to a defnition of self-identity.
In the hypercapitalist economy characterized by continuous innovation and dizzying
speed of change buying things in markets and owning property becomes an out-
dated idea, while just in time access to virtually every kind of service, through vast
commercial networks operating in cyberspace, becomes the norm. We increasingly
pay for the experience of using things in the form of subscriptions, memberships and
leases rather than pay for the things themselves. The bottom line: we are spending
more and owning less.
Jeremy Rifkin
16
Unbundling Value Chains
One of the immediate consequences of the new ways of thinking described
above is the unbundling of value chains, a process that is now underway.
The bundling of the worlds computers into a single network is ushering in what may
be called the unbundled age.
Daniel Akst
Phenomena such as mashups and the cloud are the very frst signs of this
change. As Michael Porter has taught us, the concept of the value chain must
be given free reign. It is no longer suffcient to examine how an organization
has structured its internal business processes. A much stronger focus must
be placed on the collaborations among partners in the chain not only locally,
but certainly globally as well.
13 The Long Tail theory, introduced by Chris Anderson, describes how the internet creates a market for
niche products, that start to compete with mainstream products. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
The_Long_Tail.
14 But we are shifting, too, from a culture of scarcity to one of abundance: see http://www.buzzmachine.
com/2008/08/07/the-myth-of-the-creative-class.
15 B. Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore, The Experience Economy, Harvard Business School Press, 1999.
16 Jeremy Rifkin, The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism, Where all of Life is a Paid-For
Experience, Tarcher, 2001.
64
The mutual needs of consumers must also be clearly examined. How can the
consumer be best involved in the development process in order to customize
the experience for this consumer? And how should a company deal with
large user groups, with communities? How can companies work together
with their customers? Crowdsourcing,
17
involving customers in the innova-
tion process, is a tool used increasingly frequently by companies seeking to
generate innovation.
Porters Value Chains
Each company is a collection of activities developed to bring a product or
service to market. Michael Porter identifes this series of activities as an
organizations value chain. He frst described this model in his 1985 book
Competitive Advantage.
18
Firm Infrastructure
Gross Sales
Support Activities
Primary Activities
Human Resource Management
Technology Development
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Figure 3.4: The Value Chain
19
17 Jef Howe, Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business, Crown Business,
2008.
18 Michael Porter, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, 1985.
19 Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Value_Chain.png.
65
Value is, in fact, the contribution that businesses make to customers and for
which customers are then willing to pay. The aim is to create value for cus-
tomers that is higher than what it costs to create. From this perspective,
costs are not always as important in determining competitive position as
value is.
Technology has made possible the fragmentation of the value chain.
Suzanne Berger, Professor at MIT
Value Chain 2.0
In an article entitled Value Chain, Xavier L. Comtesse and Jeffrey Huang
clearly update Porters value chain to make it more applicable to the present.
20

These chains unquestionably now involve consumers along with the other
companies implicated in a given companys business processes. The produc-
tion of a good or service is to be seen as a collective initiative bent on the
creation of a unique value (= experience) for a unique consumer.
The fact that the creation of value is an activity not just reserved for compa-
nies but entangled in the interplay between producer and consumer means
that Porters original notion of the value chain is no longer suffcient. This
collaboration with consumers, identifed by Comtesse and Huang as the
Value Chain 2.0, is illustrated in Figure 3.5.
An extra dimension has been added to each manner of value creation within
an organization. These additions refect the consumers involvement in the
business process. As a result, collaboration with end users and other com-
panies is a requirement for continued survival in the new age.
20 X.L. Comtesse and J. Huang, Value Chain 2.0, http://www.lunchoverip.com/valuechain20/value-
chain20.pdf.
66
World Wide Infrastructure
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Support Activities
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Human Resource Self Management
Technology Co-Development
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Figure 3.5: The Value Chain 2.0
The System is the Product
On June 17, 2006, Adam Richardson expressed his frustrations concerning
the new Motorola cell phone on his weblog.
21
In his blog posting, he uttered
his new mantra The System is the Product. For a product to feel harmoni-
ous with the user, the system that surrounds it must be harmonious. No
product is outside of a system, though not all products are systems.
Likely, it is the iPod and its associated system (iTunes) that is among the frst
examples of his philosophy. Apple introduced its newest product on October
23, 2001. With this mp3 player, Apple promised consumers complete and
continuous access to their music collection: All your music, always with you.
The success behind this mp3 player was not due to the device but to the
underlying software. Specifcally, the iTunes program makes it possible for
the bulk of functionality to be left off the iPod and run on the PC.
The launching of iTunes Music Software was tantamount to a fully feshed-
out implementation of Richardsons mantra. It enabled consumers to stream
21 http://richardsona.squarespace.com/main/2006/6/15/motorola-q-snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-
victory2.html.
67
all types of media (video as well as audio) to their iPods. The iPod became,
as it were, the interface for the entire underlying system. It provided an
entirely different manner of enhancing and personalizing the consumers
experience.
This type of thinking is now being applied more frequently. All kinds of
social web applications are currently being offered through APIs, allowing
users to outft their products with their own chosen content. Consider, for
example, Microsoft Virtual Earth or Google Maps in which various types of
extra information can be added, augmenting the program with almost any
new type of visual data.
Mashup and the Cloud
The Gartner Hype Cycle in Figure 3.6 shows the various elements of cloud
and Web 2.0 in their different stages of adoption, including the term Web 2.0
itself. The complete Web 2.0 movement has caused all kinds of new social
applications to spring to life. Wikipedia, Flickr, Blogger, Digg, YouTube and
Facebook are probably the most important examples of this phenomenon.
They all rely on the consumers input and therefore offer a full range of APIs
in order to provide the greatest possible means of incorporating the needs of
their end users.
To help web consumers negotiate this jungle of social networks, large com-
panies are offering platforms in order to make it easier to create mashups:
link networks and programs together. Examples of such online infrastruc-
ture are Amazon Web Service, Yahoo! Pipes, Microsoft Popfy and Microsoft
Live Mesh, Google App Engine and the IBM Cloud.
Companies are also using these platforms. They are placing increasingly
more of their core business in the cloud and linking to the core activities of
other companies. In this way, completely new business processes have been
created (along with corresponding new forms of collaboration), outside the
walls of any one company.
68
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Tablet PC
Electronic Paper
Wikis
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Behavioral
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Architecture
Green IT
RFID (Case/Pallet)
Public Virtual Worlds
Solid-State Drives
Erasable Paper
Printing Systems
Video Telepresence
Social Computing Platforms
Web2.0
Figure 3.6: Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies
22
3.4
Conclusion
The world is verging on a fundamental transformation the likes of which we
have never seen. The ways in which companies are accustomed to doing
business will change for good. How can this be possible? Companies have
stood alone on the bridge of commercial enterprise for decades. They have
laid the course along which the consumer economy has had to sail. They
have dictated the products that consumers would like to possess. They have
greatly benefted from the absolute power that is now crumbling away at a
furious rate.
The emergence of new technologies has undermined this corporate regime
by completely altering the product paradigm. Technology has made globali-
zation possible. No longer is there any distinction between here and there.
Neither is there any distinction between sooner and later; transactions are
now occurring in real time. The technology has also come into the hands of
consumers, enabling them to have immediate input into the production proc-
22 Source: http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=159496&ref=g_homelink.
69
ess. Using the technology to assert a newly acquired advantage, consumers
can make their own wishes known and demand customized products or
experiences from companies. Companies must provide specifc concrete
responses to the unique needs of each individual consumer. But how can
companies achieve this?
No single company is capable of satisfying these unique needs all by itself.
Any company must therefore collaborate and enter into dialogues with other
companies and with its consumers as well. This will have a great effect on
the position of the company in the market, and will also have effects inside
organizations. And not least, it will have an effect on the role of the IT depart-
ment within the organization. In the next chapters we will go into these top-
ics and we will also talk about the workings of collaboration and its tools.
71
Case Holland Casino
Case: Holland Casino Turns to Combination of Collaboration and Organi-
zational Change as Strategy for the Future
Technology with Insuffcient Functionality Was Hampering Recruitment, Fueling
Travel Costs
It wouldnt be a stretch to say that Holland Casino has been an ideal candidate to
beneft from collaboration technologies. Since its founding in 1975, the government-
owned company had grown into a 750 million-a-year network of 14 casinos serving
gaming and entertainment devotees throughout the Netherlands. That footprint, and
possible expansion, left the company little choice but to acknowledge in 2007 that
new technologies needed to be introduced.
For instance, on the recruitment front, the lack of real-time collaboration tools, such
as instant messaging, video conferencing and mobile document sharing, is now and
certainly in the near future is going to be a handicap in Holland Casinos eforts to
hire promising young talent. They prefer to work where cutting-edge technologies
are at their fngertips. Young people coming in are very well aware of all the new
technologies, says Ruud de Haas, director of information and communication tech-
nology. They use them at home, and they want to use them at work as well.
Among current employees, the lack of access to those same tools meant that eforts
to coordinate on projects or simply to communicate with each other were relegated
to email, sending around documents and phone calls. These are seen as increasingly
inefcient tools for evolving real-time business environments. Moreover, the com-
panys network of casinos had employees driving from one property to the next when
working closely with co-workers in multiple locations, whereas a web-based collabo-
ration platform would render many such trips unnecessary.
Big Bet on Collaboration Tied to Organizational, Network Efforts
While Holland Casino was trying to address its collaboration defcit, it was also
beginning to restructure around a new organizational model that refected the
changing business. The companys management agreed that implementing a plat-
form for collaboration would help that new model succeed. It proceeded to deploy
Microsofts SharePoint 2007 online collaboration software, as well as its video con-
ferencing technology, in conjunction with a rollout of Ofce 2007. In the fall of 2008,
it launched a proof-of-concept rollout of SharePoint, which was to run for three
months to a cross-section of employees.
At this time, the companys advisory board planned to assess its impact based on
user experience reports, business process results, and whatever necessary organi-
zational changes become apparent. Full rollout of SharePoint to the companys
2,000 information workers (the company employs around 4,700 people in all) is
72
expected to occur during 2010. The efort, dubbed InfraNext, will combine the wider
SharePoint and Microsoft Ofce rollout with the establishment of a unifed commu-
nications platform for ensuring that employees are able to keep in the loop at all
times. About a dozen IT stafers will be working on the project, with help from Micro-
soft. Workspace management consultancy Getronics NV already prepared the foun-
dations for this project.
Despite the substantial resources behind it, de Haas sees the success of the collabo-
ration efort as being tied to the fate of the companys network capabilities, for which
an upgrade strategy was being laid out. The strategy was approved by the board to
ensure the level of performance needed to support dynamic, real-time applications.
The success also depends on the cultural change needed to really use collaboration
tools, according to de Haas.
New Strategy Brings High Hopes and Cultural Change
The kind of widespread change brought about by an efort like InfraNext isnt easy
to institute. In a company where face-to-face meetings in specifc locations have been
the cultural norm, moving to a technology-enabled collaboration strategy is a deli-
cate operation. Even exhaustive training of employees on using the new technology
wont ensure the success of Holland Casinos evolving strategy. Thats why de Haas
believes the success of the parallel organizational change efort is so important. This
cant be a technology issue, he says. It has to come from the top, not from IT.
Assuming it all comes together as planned, de Haas has high hopes for what the
changes will bring in terms of business value. He expects substantial project manage-
ment efciency gains as the automated workfows inherent in SharePoint workspaces
move Holland Casinos projects along more quickly than ever before. SharePoints
messaging and document sharing capabilities will enable employees to communicate
more easily in real-time, preventing important details from sitting in email and voice
mail inboxes waiting to be addressed. And at those times when a phone call is neces-
sary, SharePoints presence capabilities will enable employees to see whos actually
at their desks, further reducing the number of calls that go into voice mail.
In addition to such hard-to-measure efciency gains, the new technology will help
Holland Casino slash travel costs as employees adopt the tools to coordinate with
colleagues at the various casinos. According to de Haas, those savings alone could
save the company a substantial amount of money each year.
73
4
On Productivity
4.1
Introduction
The world around the organization is changing. Value chains have opened up
and there are new pressures on businesses. But what does it look like inside
the organization? How do these changes impact the inner workings of the
company? In this chapter we will look at developments and what is happening
to the organization, then look deeper into what is happening inside company
boundaries. Furthermore, this chapter will also spell out some directions for
corporate IT on its journey to become the enabler that it always aspired to be.
Imagine the best-run organization that could be: an organization where you
can beneft from the creativity, support and initiatives of all your colleagues;
where autonomous units within the organization are responding properly to
every business challenge and opportunity. Where there is a structure for
knowledge management that makes the company more mature every day,
leading to better decisions and ever-greater effciency. Such an organization
will have a culture where people are valued for who they are, and where
people are free to express themselves. People in management roles function
as facilitators and are open to feedback and suggestions for improvement
from anyone with whom they are in touch.
We all seem to have an idea what such a great company could be like how
much fun it would be to work for one, and how easily such an organization
would respond to change and even beneft from changes in the market. Still,
most organizations continue to function in the old way.
Since the early twentieth century, management practice has become increas-
ingly professional. Research has been done in the felds of metrics and incen-
tives. We have looked into subdividing tasks and assigning roles. We have
gained some insight into how to evaluate and motivate people. Yet when
examining the progress in this area, we must conclude that management
structures are largely unaffected. The way we manage people is still the
same as it was forty years ago, while the markets around us have been chang-
ing. While management has been practicing and honing a command-and-
74
control management style, the job market and the regular market of consum-
ers have changed dramatically over the years.
4.2
Changing Markets
In the previous chapters we discussed Michael Porters work on value chains.
Another topic Porter is famous for is the fve forces model with which you
are probably familiar. Michael Porter introduced the model in 1979 to describe
markets, and specifcally the competitiveness of a market. It has become a
tool companies may use to analyze their market position, their threats and
opportunities. In short, the Porter model looks at the choices that are avail-
able to every player in a specifc market and how they impact the role of a
producer: new and existing competitors, buyers, suppliers. In the model, the
job market, which has its own dynamics, is not explicitly mentioned, but it
could be viewed as a suppliers market supplying companies with the human
capital essential for production.
The fve forces model, though 30 years old, is still a valid way of examining
markets. Still, when we look at the model we immediately see that for many
markets the present use of the internet has greatly increased the competi-
tiveness of these markets. This is especially true for markets where no phys-
ical goods are produced are impacted. For example, it has become easier for
buyers and suppliers to fnd each other and to organize bargaining power. It
has become cheaper for new players to enter certain markets (this is possible
in large part because a lot of IT support is readily available in the cloud.) The
power companies used to have over their brand and marketing is slowly
eroding thanks to different kinds of media: YouTube and the blogosphere
are much more diffcult to direct than radio, television and newspapers.
Ongoing Conversations Change the Pace of Business
A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discover-
ing and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a
direct result, markets are getting smarter and getting smarter faster than most
companies.
www.cluetrain.com
75
4 On Productivity
Threat of
New Entrants
Threat of Substitute
Products or Services
Bargaining Power
of Buyers
Bargaining Power
of Suppliers
Soorcc. lorrcr, 1979
Potential
Entrants
Industry
Competitors
Rivalry Among
Existing Firms
Substitutes
Suppliers Buyers
Figure 4.1: The Five Forces
1
We have discussed the Cluetrain Manifesto and Naked Conversations in pre-
vious chapters. Since the Cluetrain Manifesto was published online in 1999
(and on paper in 2000), we have been talking about markets as ongoing con-
versations between consumers, producers, suppliers and partners. A people-
to-people market, very different from the business-to-business world we
were used to. The Cluetrain Manifesto serves as a call to action for companies
in a market where individual consumers are asking to be treated as indi-
viduals, with personal service and attention. Since the publication of the
Cluetrain Manifesto in 1999 there has been a lot of change in the internet and
business world, and most of it is in line with what the manifesto proposed.
The impact of these new market dynamics is in two main areas: the many
different consumers and the incredible speed of change. To reach the con-
sumers there is a drive towards extreme personalization. The social nature
of people leads to changes in consumer behavior, which are happening at a
faster pace than many organizations can handle.
And another characteristic of any conversation is that it is ongoing and incre-
mental: getting and staying in touch with consumers continuously. Respond
to changes in demand quickly. Leverage the better insights by creating bet-
1 http://www.libraries.psu.edu/business/images/industry/fveforces.jpg.
76
ter services and solutions. Leave the one-product-fts-all and offer more spe-
cialized solutions for specifc groups, or even individuals.
In Naked Conversations (2006), Robert Scoble and Shel Israel put a more
practical spin on the Cluetrain Manifesto, giving the business world insight
into how blogs are becoming an essential part of this conversational market
as described in the manifesto. Blogs ft the bill due to their interactive nature,
immediacy of communication and reversal of power. Any individual could
start a blog within minutes, be discovered and thrust into the limelight
thanks to social bookmarking and simple syndication of content. If an idea
or bit of information is worth spreading, it will gain an audience in a matter
of hours.
Where Value Comes From
Any organization looking to thrive in a competitive market will analyze its
competitive advantage. Strategists will think about how to increase the
competitive advantage of the company by partitioning those parts of the
company that represent its key products or commodities and which make
it unique, from others. This might be very visible, as in cases where part of
an organization is outsourced. It might also be an implicit way of control-
ling the fow of money and investments: were no longer investing in the
old products, but spending time and money on developing new products
and services.
This also has an impact on IT strategy. The fact that just maintaining exist-
ing IT systems costs money, while not creating new profts, puts pressure on
IT. As a direct consequence, there is a need to, on the one hand, become more
effcient and operationally optimized, while, on the other hand, becoming
more agile and responsive to business needs.
Therefore, value is created in those parts or activities of the organization that
are not a commodity. Yet the parts or activities that are not a commodity are
also the parts that are hardest to optimize. This is a major problem for organ-
izations: the need to change, innovate or even just respond to changing cir-
cumstances is enormous, yet the parts of the organization that are involved
in this change, innovation or response are impossible to optimize. We need
a good way to improve the productivity of this sector of the organization.
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4 On Productivity
The Rise of the Consumployee as Source of Innovations
Who initiates technological innovation within an organization? We like to
think its the CIO or CTO, basing his initiatives on research and business
needs. This is increasingly not true. In reality, often the individual employ-
ees are the ones driving the demand for new technology. Consumers try out
the new technologies in their private lives, then they bring these technolo-
gies and expectations to work. The frst smartphones were brought in by the
people who liked this cool new thing. The frst websites were built by crea-
tive technology people playing around with the new technology. Instant mes-
saging was brought into organizations by people using it in the personal
sphere. MSN, Facebook, LinkedIn, online video and many other examples
started purely in the consumer sphere, then found their way into organiza-
tions, creating new opportunities for networking, sharing of information, etc.
First these innovations were primarily driven by technical people, now they
are occurring enterprise-wide. When it comes to Web 2.0 tools, in the private
sphere there are little restraints and the tools are freely and quickly avail-
able so the pressure on corporate IT to adopt them is large. In most organiza-
tions, the IT department is ill suited to respond to these kinds of innovations.
They either expressly forbid the use of any non-authorized tools, or simply
ignore the problem.
Autonomy and Responding to Changes
Whenever an organization gets to a certain size, the management and coor-
dination of the whole starts to become more diffcult. That is probably the
main reason why many companies never grow beyond a few hundred people:
it becomes a different game to manage anything beyond that size. In par-
ticular, responding to change takes a lot of extra time and effort in the larger
companies. How do we change that, and remain nimble regardless of the
company size?
In a book by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom called The Starfsh and the
Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, a possible solu-
tion is presented. They use the analogy in the book title: try to create organ-
izations where every unit or sub-entity is an autonomous, viable part that
could in theory be its own company (like species of starfsh, which can regen-
erate limbs or grow new starfsh from a single tentacle), instead of a centrally
78
controlled organization where everything depends upon the central core
(like spiders who will die from losing their legs excuse the cruelty of the
metaphor).
They go ahead and explore the characteristics of starfsh organizations,
taking cues from AA (Alcoholics Anonymous), but also Al-Qaeda, among
others. The book focuses on themes of cultural change and catalysts the
people who can help bring change and manage the delicate balance between
centralized and decentralized.
There is a bigger trend that indicates that successful organizations are fat-
ter (due to continuous focus on decreasing the number of layers of manage-
ment) and try to delegate authority down the chain of command. This also
gives rise to practices such as 360-degree feedback and self-steering
teams.
IT support in the kind of organization that consists of numerous fairly auton-
omous units is also different from IT support in centrally coordinated, top-
down organizations. Instead of one client for IT, there are many. Instead of
one solution, there may be a need for many different solutions based upon
slightly different needs and strategies. The game of fnding and supporting
the commonality between different units, and embedding these in an enter-
prise architecture, becomes all the more important.
Worker Productivity Needs to Improve Dramatically
Increasing productivity is ultimately what determines the living standards of people,
the competitive advantage of organizations and the wealth of nations.
Erik Brynjolfsson, Director of the Center for eBusiness, MIT
2
How we motivate people in a business context and how we provide them with
the right incentives to reach their highest productivity is a continuous chal-
lenge to organizations. Changes in culture and tools bring new challenges
in the effort to make people productive. The introduction of new tools and
channels of communication also brings challenges on a very personal level:
people struggle to avoid being distracted from work by email, internet,
messaging, twitter and numerous other interruptions.
2 http://productivity.mit.edu/.
79
4 On Productivity
Productivity in a business context is not measured as the sum of the produc-
tivity of all individuals. It is really only the productivity of the collective.
Only if all people work well together can an organizational unit be really
productive. If everybody is busy creating papers and emails, that might be
perceived as a high personal productivity, but it might not be the greatest
collective productivity. Evidently, any group of people working together
needs to have a continuous process that examines the productivity of the
group. This process must be continuously open, to improve how people work
together. When were talking about collaborative culture, this is what we
mean: everybody is responsible for maximizing the productivity of ALL col-
laborative groups they are a part of (and perhaps even of groups they are
NOT part of).
This is very much a bottom-up culture. The classic example is that it was
only when car-manufacturer Toyota started taking the ideas and insights
of factory workers seriously that they could improve the quality and pro-
ductivity of the whole production process of their cars. In the process, they
changed their entire way of managing production and quality. Similarly,
when we want to improve administrative organizations, we need to have a
way to structurally involve all information workers in optimizing the
whole process.
Productivity is an interesting metric. We like to think of productivity as a
very concrete number that can easily be quantifed, but in reality productiv-
ity of an employee or company as a whole is hard to determine. Yet we do
realize that productivity is directly related to the revenues and ultimately
the proft of the company: if we can do more work with fewer people, we are
bound to earn more and spend less.
The frst major steps in improving productivity were made in manufactur-
ing: optimizing the environment, processes and necessary skills to maximize
the output of the factory while minimizing the number of people involved.
This is also the base for Six Sigma, Lean and the CMM methodologies.
Later attempts to apply these to the offce side of organizations, or to entire
administrative organizations, turned out to be more diffcult. Some parts
(e.g., claims processing or data entry) were fairly similar to manufacturing,
so the same lessons could be applied. There are great examples of how groups
of typists were trained and optimized to be highly productive. However,
some parts were harder to optimize: one-off projects, creative processes,
80
ad-hoc responses to new situations. How to optimize the productivity of a
team that develops new products and services?
Collaborative Knowledge Management
One of the elements that will improve productivity of those parts of an
organization that are unlike production is knowledge management: build
corporate knowledge and use it to provide people with guidance and support.
A lot has been written about knowledge management, and it is a bit of a holy
grail: a lot of promise but ever-so-hard to achieve.
The newer tools that support collaboration seem to help a lot in embedding
knowledge management into everyday processes. One of the challenges has
always been that people are willing to USE information once its there, but
they are NOT willing to create or add information if it is not in their immedi-
ate best interest. A special situation arises when we use the right tools to
support people in their everyday processes: just by using the tools, they will
add information to the whole. By categorizing information for their own
purposes, that cataloged information may be shared with others. By priori-
tizing tasks or bits of information for your own use, you can share this eval-
uation with others. By selecting certain links or words over others, statistical
information is created that ranks relevance.
Figure 4.2: Tag-cloud of this chapter, generated at Wordle.net
Once we take information and processes out of the email tool and start using
other tools that are focused on retaining information in a structured way
81
4 On Productivity
(portals, wikis), we can improve the way we collect and create information.
Improving access and lowering barriers to adding even more information
will create even more and better knowledge. A lot of the tools would also
provide the support to enable structure and meaning to emerge automati-
cally. For example, tag-clouds that show the contextual use of words could
give a quick idea of the topics discussed in certain passages, or most visited
links could give insight into which pages are most likely relevant on an
intranet, especially if we could see most visited by your peers (i.e. social
bookmarking).
Digital Natives Accelerate the Change
The digital natives, the newer generations, will bring some extra impetus to
all the initiatives mentioned above. Once they start thinking about business,
sales, marketing and optimizing organizations, expect to see extra pressure
on new-style productivity, fat and autonomous organizations, and a different
view of work and commitments. The changes we can expect are rooted in
the beliefs and characteristics of the digital natives:
The world is fat. They live with an international view of the world. While
they have some geographic home, its easy for them to connect to people
and business across the globe.
There is a greater dislike of bureaucracy, and some disrespect for author-
ity. Motivation is not accomplished through exercising power but through
inspiration.
Social in nature. Having many friends and connections, they actively use
this network in personal and business life.
Their commitment is based on deliverables rather than on a span of time.
Ideally they work whenever they like, as long as they deliver on time.
Technology is not seen as technology, its simply there to be used. When
you are born in a world full of computers and websites, the technology
behind it is a lot less interesting than the possibilities in practice. This
will also mean they will have higher expectations of what should be pos-
sible using technology, since they are less interested in the complexities
of implementation. (If this website has it, why cant we?).
For the digital immigrants, its hard to imagine what it means to live with
the assumptions and expectations of a digital native. There are a lot of great
examples of generational differences between natives and immigrants: from
the father who could not explain why at the vacation address television
82
shows were not available on demand (there was no TiVo, like at home) to
the mother who cant grasp that her daughter has over 300 friends online,
most of whom she has never met. Or even the older brother who cant see
why (or how) his younger sister only uses email to communicate with older
people like him.
The new generations want to be productive and use the tools available. They
want to work in autonomous teams that are free to control their own struc-
ture and dynamics. They want to think and work across organizational
boundaries. They will bring a new wave of technologies and expectations to
the corporate world.
4.3
Consequences for IT
We started with the insight that many innovations in technology were not
instigated by the CIO or the IT department. So what is the role of an IT depart-
ment in supporting all these developments? What does an IT department
need to do to enable all these new ideas and initiatives?
ITs frst instinctive refex will be to try and stay in control: create strict rules
that everybody has to abide by, and create a governance structure that checks
if the rules are not broken. This will give the organization great control over
the technology portfolio, but it will stife innovation and business dynamics.
Business doesnt simply want to introduce IT complexity for complexitys
sake; it is usually in pursuit of business goals or ideas. A more fexible and
dynamic view on IT is needed to fnd the right balance between control and
freedom.
Responding to business change means supporting a more fexible IT. This is
where enterprise architecture, IT architecture and specifcally service-ori-
ented architecture are positioned: trying to use an architectural style that is
aimed at reuse and supporting agility. The IT department will look for ways
to optimize the IT portfolio and create the best set of IT assets. The focus
shifts to a portfolio view that is focused on today and tomorrow and not just
on delivering projects. The IT portfolio is the set of tools that are offered
to the business users to let them create or confgure their own solutions
(instead of only offering IT-crafted, specifc solutions).
83
4 On Productivity
This fts neatly with the organization that is comprised of autonomous
business units. If the tools are part of a portfolio that business units can
select from as they like, they are free to create solutions that ft their spe-
cifc needs. If there is also a way to include external services, offered from
the cloud, it means the organization has the fexibility to leave parts of its
business to the market if the market has started to offer a specifc business
task at a better price and/or quality. Think of the business as a portfolio
of business services, created and managed by autonomous business units,
supported by IT services that are internal and external, depending on the
market.
The digital natives will expect these tools and platforms to be available once
they start entering the workplace. They will introduce new technologies and
expectations themselves. The IT department needs to get ready to support
this drive for innovation. Denying its existence (or its value) will not work,
nor will strict guidelines that forbid innovation: the digital natives are likely
to vote with their feet and try to fnd employment elsewhere with your
competition, perhaps?
One thing that the IT solutions should allow, regardless of the fractured
nature of the business or the complexity of the IT portfolio, is building cor-
porate knowledge. The reason for doing certain business tasks in the context
of an enterprise is to be able to create effciency and lower the cost of trans-
actions needed to complete the tasks. One important way of creating eff-
ciency and lowering the cost is to build corporate knowledge: learn from
experiences and let people share knowledge across the network. In practical
terms, this means that knowledge-building should be ingrained in the plat-
forms:
Tagging (adding classifcation information to assets);
Bookmarking (categorizing and selection);
Rating (evaluating value);
Groups (help people fnd peers to exchange information that fts their
needs);
Trends (give insight into popularity and the way the wind is blowing,
making for better business decisions); and
Collaborative sense-making (create an open dialogue that interprets
information and tries to uncover hidden meanings, allowing better
insights and better decisions).
84
The tools for collaboration illustrate exactly the role IT should be playing in
modern business. IT doesnt create or DO the actual collaboration, it simply
provides the tools. IT doesnt determine HOW people use the tools, it simply
makes sure they are fexible and available. IT doesnt have to be involved to
create new collaboration initiatives, all it has to do is respond to new chan-
nels and tools that are entering the industry. The business users will fnd out
what they want, what will work. IT gives them the pen, typewriter and brush
and lets business discover what works for its needs.
Real Change is Business Change
IT will need to respond and provide the right tools for business, but it is up
to the business side of the organization to fnd the best new structure. As
Gary Hamel argues in his book The Future of Management, the only sustain-
able innovation is the innovation of management. Only when we examine
the workings of the organization itself and optimize the way people manage
and work, can we hope to increase business productivity and business inno-
vation. As Hamel wrote, the exact design of what such an organization looks
like will be different for each company, but the themes of fat organizations,
increased autonomy, bottom-up initiatives and better collaboration will be
present in any organization. But here lies a challenge, since the structure of
management is also the hardest to change. The people that have to initiate
change will also be the people mostly impacted by it.
85
Case Sydved AB
Case: Sydved Transforms Complexity into Simplicity
Integrated Interface Shifts Focus from Administration to Timber Procurement
When youre in a business like wood procurement, the last thing you want is to have
folks stranded at their computers, drowning in repetitive business processes. But that
used to be the situation at Swedish timber-purchasing frm Sydved AB, which made
the decision several years ago to move much of its administrative staf to other func-
tions. This left employees in the feld to manage the myriad of details involved in
coordinating with forest owners, wood harvesters, transport companies, customers
and colleagues.
At the time, those feld workers had to swap between some 25-30 applications used
for tracking harvest information, managing contracts, generating reports and han-
dling the countless other processes comprising a single contract. Worse yet, they
had to toggle between the various contracts, creating an inefcient combination of
wasted time, excessive processing demands, and operational complexity, when what
they really needed to be doing was visiting harvest sites, negotiating purchase agree-
ments and executing contracts. And as difcult as it was to enter and manage the
information, it was equally challenging to view it, what with all the switching back
and forth from this contract to that, and from one menu to another.
The drain on the company went even further, because the complexity of the system
required that Sydved provide heavy support for its feld staf, whose normal job func-
tions are related to purchase of wood and managing the harvesting of forests, not
performing administrative tasks. The result was a whole lot of questions. Before,
they were never taught how to navigate the system environment, so they didnt know
what to do, says CIO Roland Persson.
PEA: Collaborative Business Process Management at Its Simplest
That all changed when Sydved tapped its IT teams .Net and C++ programming skills
to build a new system that greatly simplifes the coordination of so many moving
parts. The resulting system, called PEA, is an achievement in collaborative simplicity.
It combines more than two dozen applications into a single row-and-column interface
that allows feld staf, as well as other staf throughout the company, to access all
the contracts theyre working on, along with the status of each project, all in one
view. PEA enables real-time collaboration, and its ability to keep employees up-to-
date on their joint eforts with colleagues delivers truly collaborative business proc-
esses. And feld staf have no idea what application theyre working in at a given
moment nor do they need to as PEA leads them through the process, step by step,
without ever leaving the main interface.
86
Not that development of PEA occurred without hiccups. For instance, initially the
system was designed to update interactively, in real time, but the added drain on
computing resources was more than Sydveds IT environment could accommodate.
And that meant unacceptable latency caused staf to wait inordinate amounts of
time for requested information. Response time is important because users are impa-
tient all of the time, says Persson. Even if youve got a lot of information, they dont
want to wait even 20 or 30 seconds. To solve that problem, Perssons team tweaked
the system to update in batch mode each night, easing the drain on IT systems dur-
ing business hours. Also, if the user needs to, he can choose to refresh the interface,
wait these seconds and get the most current data: it is up to the user.
Now, Sydved employees not only can use a single view to see the status of all current
contracts, they also get visual clues as to the status of each process as well as
reminders of specifc tasks that await their individual contributions.
Employees on the Same Page = Competitive Advantage
Persson estimates that PEA, which runs on IBM iSeries servers calling an Oracle
database, has enabled feld staf to reduce their administrative workloads by as much
as 20%, and has prevented Sydved from having to increase its administrative staf
by at least 10% to keep up with the companys growth. It has also yielded a more
efcient staf by enabling employees to quickly view the status of everything from
timber availability to harvesting difculties to costs. With a turnover of people of
40% in the last 3 to 4 years, PEA has been very valuable in quickly getting new staf
on track they can immediately see what they have to do. Combine that with the
benefts of streamlined administration and improved information accuracy, and Pers-
son believes PEA is twice as efective as the mish-mash of applications it replaced.
Additionally, PEA was designed with sufcient fexibility to add processes or contracts
easily on the fy, an important consideration given the difculty of predicting every
task feld that might eventually be needed to support a contract.
Any way you look at it, Sydveds investment in PEA is money well spent. The new
system has reduced the volume of questions and issues that arise during the fulfll-
ment of a contract, and it has created a new level of collaborative business process
management. That translates to faster decisions, which constitutes a competitive
advantage. Where confusion and misinformation reigned before, says Persson, Now
we have diferent people talking about the same things.
87
5
The Anatomy of Collaboration
5.1
Introduction
Collaboration and communication are different themes on the same spec-
trum; only when we communicate can we collaborate, and the part of col-
laboration that involves working with others is some form of communication.
Lessons in communicating teach us to consider the partners viewpoint and
to create a connection to exchange information. This is hard enough in face-
to-face communications, and it doesnt get any easier when collaborating
across a distance. The many tools available are striving to approach or even
improve upon the face-to-face communication we are all used to. In this
chapter we will discuss the ingredients of collaboration, and some of the tools
that are available to support it.
As Marshall McLuhan eloquently put it: We become what we behold. We
shape our tools and then our tools shape us.
1
The frst tools available mim-
icked the tools we used in real life collaboration, people meeting people
face-to-face. Over time, the tools have improved and are now using the new
capabilities that come with the medium. Regardless of the medium were
using or the tools we have to help us, we can talk about the capabilities we
need to collaborate effectively. We have the need to:
Have a place to store and add information, to create deliverables and build
knowledge. Write it down on paper, record it on tape or store it in the
cloud.
Interact, communicate: exchange information between people, the main
difference from doing something alone.
Know and share status: is someone available? Can I approach you with
a question?
Know more about with whom we are communicating: know the identity,
role and position of someone we are working with. Know the social net-
works.
Discover information: search and fnd. Have a way to structure informa-
tion.
1 http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan.
88
Be notifed: we dont only want to search, we also want to be notifed of
important events and information.
Integrate: we want all these elements to be seamlessly connected and
integrated.
To take collaboration and communication to the next level within the com-
pany and within the value chain, it helps to understand the types of col-
laboration that take place, and know how the available platforms support,
enable and enrich these collaborations.
There are a fair number of tools and websites available to support some kind
of collaborative work. But, do they offer what businesses need? Do they have
the feature sets to automate and to support the information worker? Do they
offer the collaborative environment that business needs, an environment
where everybody works together in a seamless collaborative way and is able
to work from any place in the world, unleashing the creativity and innovation
of the individual and the crowd (collective intelligence)?
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89
5 The Anatomy of Collaboration
5.2
Electronic Communication
The most widely used collaboration tool is, of course, email. It was preceded
by other electronic communication tools invented years ago: frst the tele-
graph, then the telephone, and later the fax. Samuel F.B. Morse invented the
practical use of the telegraph, on May 24, 1844. The frst offcial message in
Morse code, What hath God wrought? was sent from the old Supreme Court
chamber in the United States Capitol to Morses partner in Baltimore.
2
The
word telegraph was derived from Greek
and means to write far, which is exactly
what the telegraph does and what it was
meant for: to communicate over a long dis-
tance. Its hard to grasp how the telegraph
changed the perception of distance. In those
times, the only ways to send information to
another place was to physically bring it
there or use a complex system of watch
posts and signals (or smoke). To send a
message across America would take 10 days
(one way), using the Pony Express.
3
And
there was no guarantee that the message
would even arrive.
Figure 5.2: Pony Express Poster
Around 1870, Alexander Graham Bells telephone added an extra dimension
to the limited electronic communication tooling of the time. Different from
the telegraph, it enabled synchronous communication with speech. Not eve-
rybody was convinced of the value of this innovation. In England, the most
prominent man of the time in the feld of communication, the Head Postmas-
ter, was quoted saying No, sir. The Americans have need of the telephone
but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys. Admittedly, it must have
been hard to imagine that the telephone would evolve into something every
person could own and that might be used by teenagers to call each other and
ask, where are you?
2 http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventions/a/telegraph.htm.
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pony_Express.
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Communications support grew from physical delivery to remote communica-
tion, to synchronous communication, and then to synchronous communica-
tion by everyone, all in only a hundred years or so. In the 1930s we had the
telex (basically a long-distance typewriter), and in 1950, a century after the
introduction of the telegraph, Bell Laboratories came up with the frst
DataTelephone. It was the frst implementation of a modern modem with
a speed of 50 kilobytes per second. From
there it took another twelve years before Ray
Tomlinson developed a system for sending
messages between computers that used the
@ symbol to identify addresses. The internet
was in sight, and in 1988 email became more
widely adopted through the development of
the email client Eudora by Steve Dorner. The
basics of email, and its use, have been the
same ever since, and evolution has been
almost idle for 35 years.
Figure 5.3: Ray Tomlinson
Originally email was a communication tool, intended to send and receive
information. As it became widely adopted, it also became peoples preferred
way to work together. It has taken over the telephone as the most important
facility any business must have, and it has become part of many business
processes. Just think of what would be worse for business: the phone system
down for a day, or email?
The Problems with Email
Email wasnt invented with a wide spectrum of collaborative work in mind.
It was invented for sending letters in the standard format of the pre-elec-
tronic era. (A telling sign is that the CC refers to carbon copy from the time
when letters were duplicated with carbon paper placed between multiple
sheets of paper in a typewriter.)
In the time of the Pony Express, people knew better than to send multiple
copies to their peers asking them to change something and return the revi-
sion by Pony Express. They knew then that it would end up in a complete
mess. Multiple copies, multiple versions and multiple people who can change
91
the data leads inevitably to a nightmare. With email, colleagues who receive
and modify a document are going to be calling each other, arguing about who
has the most recent version and whether all the changes the others made are
also present in that version. It often ends badly.
The problem with email is its versatility, which results in an email overload
problem. Or as Chris Rasmussen put it, Email is not bad, its simply over-
used. Its a when you only know how to use a hammer, all problems are nail
type things.
4
Email Collaboration
View
View
View
View
View
Save
Save
R
e
c
e
i
v
e
R
e
c
e
i
v
e
R
e
c
e
i
v
e
R
e
c
e
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v
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Edit
Edit
Edit
Edit
View
Send
Send
Edit
Edit
Wiki Collaboration
Save
Save Send
View Edit
View Edit
Send
Figure 5.4: Email vs. Wiki Collaboration
Many organizations did research into to the email overload problem in the last
decade. They all reached the same conclusion: people will get email paralysis
if we keep sending mails as we are. We need to reexamine our use of email,
since it is costing us productivity and performance. An article in the New York
Times with the title Struggling to Evade the E-Mail Tsunami warns that
email has become the bane of some peoples professional lives.
5
Email administrators are asked to allow for bigger attachments and more
storage capacity. Some email providers have started providing email boxes
that span many gigabytes. This might sound very handy, but keep in mind
4 http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/index.php/2008/03/29/wiki - collaboration- leads- to- happiness-
updated-and-revisited/.
5 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/technology/20digi.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref
=slogin.
92
that most email is unstructured, it is often redundant, and the information
in the archive is not shared with anyone(!). There are now even special
courses for managers that teach them how to handle email: a tool has become
a task in itself? The courses arm the manager with simple advice such as,
dont keep your email program open the whole day; only answer mail at
beginning or end of your work days. With advice like that, we are taking a
step back in the direction of the Pony Express era: send a letter and wait a
few days, not knowing when the receiver will answer it.
Steve Whittaker from the University of Sheffeld conducted research into
how email could more effectively be used for task management. He sum-
marized the problems people have with using email for working together,
under the title, Why Email is Not Enough.
6
He noted that there are numer-
ous problems with using email for task management. Users relying on email
complain about:
Forgetting commitments to themselves and others (tasks that they owe
or are owed);
Tracking global task status (its hard to abstract from multiple messages
to determine where a project currently stands);
Determining whos involved in a complex task;
Integrating information across different technologies (people may com-
municate about a task in email, voicemail or using IM and its often hard
to combine information); and
Managing attachments.
How many times have you had an email exchange with someone that took
many more emails and a lot more time than expected, when picking up the
phone would have made the conversation much quicker and more effcient?
5.3
Other Tools, Other Activities
There are limitless options these days. There are so many new tools available
to communicate and collaborate with others that for any situation there is a tool
that will ft. Email platforms will lose the battle, even though they have
expanded over time. Most professional email platforms have facilities for
assigning tasks, tracking and reporting progress on these tasks, automation,
and even scheduling and archiving functions, but the use of these functions is
6 http://www.daimi.au.dk/~bardram/ecscw2005/papers/whittaker.pdf.
93
limited. Email is competing with many new tools that are better at collabora-
tion, task management, instant communication, sharing persistent data, etc.
Many new tools also belong to the Web 2.0 world. The online places where
we can talk and converse with others are all part of the global conversation,
as we discussed in Chapter 3. When we collaborate with others, we can do
so in many places. We can use online conference calls that record our meet-
ings, we can use online whiteboard to collectively draw diagrams or we can
jointly edit Excel spreadsheets. We can post our fndings on our blog, use
Twitter to communicate about minor updates or use MSN Messenger to ask
questions directly. Figure 5.5, from The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis
and Jesse Thomas, shows what the current landscape of communication
channels looks like, and the options we have when choosing our tools.
7
Conversations
Pictures
Social
Bookmarks
Comment &
Reputation
Crowdsourced
Content
Blog
Platforms
Blogs/Conversations
Blog Communities
Micromedia
Lifestreams
Specic to
Twitter
SMS/Voice
Social Networks
Niche Networks
Customers
Service Networks
Location
Video
Video Aggregation
Documents
Events
Music
Wiki
LiveCasting
Video & Audio
The Art of
Listening, Learning
& Sharing
Source: Brian Solis & Jesse Thomas
Figure 5.5: The Conversation Prism
7 http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/introducing-conversation-prism.html.
94
Ultimately, the different tools will enable different behavior. Deliverables
and information that is meant to be longer lasting will fnd a more persistent
medium than email. Reference materials fnd a resting place where people
know how to fnd them. Fleeting information will fade to the background if
it is sent using the right channels instead of being mixed with the persistent
information. The activities of people will focus again on the value they can
add to a conversation, a deliverable or a process. We are no longer managing
our email but managing value, deliverables, performance and innovation.
So lets take a closer look at the capabilities that make up collaboration. What
are the things we can use tools for? We will discuss:
Build deliverables, build knowledge;
Interaction;
Presence and status;
Relations and social structure;
Discovery, search and fnd, create structure;
Notifcations;
Integration.
In the rest of this chapter we will elaborate on these elements, and give
examples of tools that can be used to address them.
Build Deliverables, Build Knowledge
Collaboration is about working together and creating deliverables. People
may work as a team to write a document, come to a decision or evaluate a
product (i.e. produce an evaluation). The most basic level of support will help
us build something together, combine our efforts into one, and fnd a way to
store our efforts and make them available to us and others.
Early on, people realized that collaboratively building a deliverable could be
used to improve knowledge management. Knowledge management is like a
holy grail for organizations. To learn from experiences and to build a dataset
that can be used to respond to any circumstance is a highly desirable goal. If
we can entice people to contribute to a corporate knowledge deliverable, did
we fnd the grail? (yes, of course! The crux being in if we can entice).
95
There are many tools to support the creation of deliverables and build knowl-
edge, and perhaps not surprisingly the simplest is the most popular. A wiki
supports both creation (editing in a browser) and storage online:
A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses
it to contribute or modify content, using a simplifed markup language. Wikis are often
used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. The collabo-
rative encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis. Wikis are used in busi-
ness to provide intranets and Knowledge Management systems. Ward Cunningham,
developer of the frst wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as the sim-
plest online database that could possibly work.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
Wikis have certain advantages over email, such as the option of versioning,
maintaining one central point of storage where data can always be accessed
(instead of being hidden on someones computer, see also Figure 5.4). Mostly,
wikis allow the users a lot of freedom to continually interact and improve the
information.
Wikis, but especially the more advanced tools (such as SharePoint) that
enable the collaborative building of deliverables, offer extra features that
support reliable collaboration such as versioning and security. Also there are
collaborative tools that use peer-to-peer models to store and share informa-
tion. While the term still has an ambiguous ring to it due to illegal downloads
that use the same models, P2P is actually a valuable way to share information
without the need for centralized servers, storage and control.
Using Groove, clients will attempt peer-to-peer connectivity.
Failing that (due to rewalls, oline clients, etc.) Groove will use a
Groove Relay Server to queue the deltas untill the clients can be contacted.
Figure 5.6: Peer-to-Peer Architecture
96
Microsoft Groove is a peer-to-peer solution that has the ability to share
information so that people inside and outside the company can work together
on the same documents. It is simple to use and doesnt need central servers
to store data (though it can be connected to SharePoint). Instead, documents
are spread out among all the collaborators.
Offce Groove 2007 is a collaboration software program that helps teams work
together dynamically and effectively, even if team members work for different organ-
izations, work remotely, or work offine.
8
Windows Live Mesh is a Microsoft product, currently in beta version only,
that is a more infrastructural approach to sharing information something
like sharing a folder on a network. Live Mesh has the ability to share folders
between different kind of devices, so you can share any kind of fle type with
friends, family and colleagues, so long as they are in your so-called Mesh.
It can also be used to synchronize the data on multiple computers.
Figure 5.7: Live Mesh
8 http://ofce.microsoft.com/en-us/groove/HA101656331033.aspx.
97
A feature related to the tools above is tagging: with tagging people add meta-
data to assets. Tagging is not a single tool but a feature found in many tools
and websites. It is essentially a method of building knowledge: classifying
or categorizing things based upon the keywords or terms (tags) people use
to describe them. If tagging becomes a habit, the value of information will
increase rapidly, leading to more accurate information. Like tagging, a rating
mechanism is found in many tools (did you fnd this page helpful). Both
are aimed at gathering metadata about assets. We will give some examples
of tagging when we discuss discovery below.
Interaction
This is what we think of when we talk about collaboration: to interact with
others! Interaction is what drives the whole conversation economy. We con-
nect to others and interact with them. Interaction with customers helps build
trust, gives us knowledge about what drives them, and lets us gather feed-
back or even advice about the services or products. Interaction with other
people helps drive innovation and the creation of new ideas.
Some well-known tools for interaction are online
conferencing tools (using audio, video and presenta-
tion), direct messaging, making it possible to chat
with someone directly, chatboxes, forums, VoIP-calls
and, of course, email.
Instant messaging: ICQ I seek you was the frst internet-
connected instant messaging program, released in 1996. It
enabled users to send each other messages, send fles and
see each others availability. These programs got more and
more sophisticated, and at this moment they offer video
conversations, gaming, and sending offine messages on a
multitude of platforms, including your cell phone. Cur-
rently, ICQ has lost its market leadership to Microsoft,
Google and Yahoo, who each provide their own instant
messaging solution.
Figure 5.9: Cell Phone Instant Messaging
Figure 5.8: ICQ Instant
Messaging
98
Also, blogs and microblogging are a great example of the read-write web, the
internet where two-way communication is the norm: information is pub-
lished on a blog and someone else can comment on it. Anybody can start a
blog. Many companies already have blogs, to keep customers, suppliers and
the rest of the world up-to-date on whats happening within the company,
such as product upgrades, or just to encourage people to feel good about the
brand and get to know the company through seeing some real peoples words
and faces associated with the company name.
A blog (a contraction of the term Web log) is a website, usually maintained by an
individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material
such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.
Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
Personal Bloggers
79% of total
Professional Bloggers
46% of total
Corporate
Bloggers
12% of total
Figure 5.10: Bloggers
9
While a blog may seem like a one-way tool (publishing posts), the reality of
successful blogs is that, for the most part, authors of different blogs respond
to each other, engage in long-running debates, and form a network of like-
minded people that is indeed very interactive.
9 Source: Technorati.
99
%Respondents
Why blog?
Speak my mind on areas of interest
Share my expertise/experiences with others
Meet/connect with like-minded people
Keep friends/family updated on my life
Get published/featured in traditional media
Make money/supplement my income
Enhance my resume
Attract new clients to my business
0 20
79
73
62
32
26
24
21
14
40 60 80 100
Figure 5.11: The reasons people give for blogging
10
Microblogging is similar to blogging, with the difference being that the
posts (entries) are short sentences that share status, events, thoughts or
observations. Twitter.com is the leading service for microblogging. There is
also Yammer, which is much more focused on the corporate world by allow-
ing only people within a company to connect and share. It might address
some of the security and confdentiality questions related to cloud offerings,
but it has the disadvantage of not enabling the interaction with people out-
side the organization that can be so benefcial.
Presence and Status
Where are you? What are you doing? Can I interrupt? What are you working
on? Do you have time for...? All very common questions when working with
someone face-to-face. The same is needed online, to fnd who is available or
what channel to use when communicating with someone. Sharing your sta-
tus ranges from a simple free/busy status, to a status that tells people this
is where I am, this is what Im doing, this is how long it will take, these are
the people Im working with. In the same sense, even the out-of-offce
assistant used when people are on vacation is a presence-indicator, as are
your MSN Messenger status and your phones voicemail announcement.
Knowing the status of people is essential for using more real-time commu-
nication tools, and it allows for more dynamic, fexible and autonomous
10 Source: Technorati.
100
behavior. Instead of simply waiting, the sender can take the proper action to
ensure the best chance of a quick and correct response.
Instant messenger tools were the frst to explore status more closely,
because the way these tools work is by interruption, which creates the need
to manage interruptions. You wouldnt want to be interrupted with instant
questions all day when trying to get some important work done. It also asks
of your colleagues to actually respect your status, very similar to real-life
Cubicle/Offce Etiquette Tip 2 and Tip 3:
Dont interrupt someone who is on the phone by using
sign language or any other means of communication.
Think twice before interrupting someone who appears
deep in thought.
11
Instant messaging programs usually show icons
representing your contacts, and for each contact
it will show the status. MSN Messenger, Microsofts
instant messaging program, and its corporate
version Offce Communicator, have, for example,
options to set your status to Busy, Away, On the
Phone and some other default statuses. Youre
also free to enter your own status (Feeding the
baby). This gives friends and colleagues who
are connected through an instant messenger
program an easy way to see whether you may be
contacted.

Figure 5.12: Buddy List
Status might be quite detailed. On the most information-rich end of the spec-
trum are the microblogging sites such as Twitter, FriendFeed and Jaiku.
Here, the messages originally intended to convey status information have
become part of an ongoing discussion with short messages. They now pro-
vide a way to let everyone know what youre doing, whats on your mind and
what interests you. You might see it as a crossover between blogging and cell
phone short message services (text messages), allowing users to write brief
text updates (140 characters) and publish them. And the frequency of mes-
11 http://tips.learnhub.com/lesson/page/2791-30-tips-on-ofcecubicle-etiquette.
101
sages itself can also become relevant, given this example from someone who
used it to fgure out why people werent responding to his email:
I checked into their Twitter stream to see what theyd been up to throughout the day.
In one case, the person was at a conference. In the other, I wasnt sure, but the person
hadnt sent a message in hours, so he or she was clearly offine for a duration of
time.
12
Microblogging has even been used by a teacher to keep track of students, to
send them messages and interact with them, in order to understand what
keeps them busy. The continuous stream of someones status updates,
thoughts, event and responses to others is the online representation of his
or her life: they are so-called Lifestreams. Increasingly, lifestreaming is
part of everyday life for people.
Relations and Social Structure
We like to work with people we know and trust. Building and maintaining
connections between people and business is important for us in our working
lives, but also in our private lives. We like it more, and we can be more pro-
ductive if we know what to expect and we know who is the expert on a cer-
tain topic.
If we know the network, we know the people. If we know the people, we can
properly evaluate their roles and know what added value each brings to a
collaborative initiative. The famous Metcalfes law
13
states that the value of
any network is proportional to the square of the number of endpoints. Or at
a personal level: having connections to twice as many people is four times
more useful.
In the real world we build networks and make friends during social or
business events. People meet, exchange ideas, talk about their interests, or
simply start by giving each other their business cards. Online relations and
communities share these characteristics with face-to-face networks and
relations. A connection between people can be made when there is some-
thing in common, when there is the same interest or when one has informa-
tion the other is interested in.
12 http://www.chrisbrogan.com/twitter-as-presence/.
13 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfes law.
102
Figure 5.13: A graph displaying a social network. It is interesting to note that networks
are dynamic and self-organizing
Although face-to-face networks and online networks share the same char-
acteristics and benefts, creating and maintaining relations is different.
Online there is a bigger difference in how people know each other and how
strongly they are connected with someone. In the digital world, people tend
to build much more expansive networks than in real life: a contact list of
hundreds of contacts and friends is common.
Some of these contacts will be true friends; others we might be less intimate
with. We could call a relationship with someone who shares the same inter-
ests and the same network of friends a high value relationship, a strongly
tied friendship. In a strong relationship you know each other very well. In
the real world, these kind of strong connections are very common.
103
The other connections we have we could call weakly tied relations. They are
people you know, whom you may have met briefy but do not know well. You
know enough about them to keep in touch, know where they work and what
they might help you with. In online communities these weakly tied connec-
tions are made easily easier than in the real world.
Both types of relationship have their benefts.
strong ties are unlikely to be bridges between networks, while weak ties are good
bridges. Bridges help solve problems, gather information, and import unfamiliar
ideas. They help get work done quicker and better. The ideal network for a knowledge
worker probably consists of a core of strong ties and a large periphery of weak ones.
Because weak ties by defnition dont require a lot of effort to maintain, theres no
reason not to form a lot of them (as long as they dont come at the expense of strong
ties).
14
Nodes often arent as important as the connections between them. Reductionist
science and analysis from the 19th and 20th centuries focused on nodes. I believe
21st century science, economics, political science, and computer science will use
more complex systems theory to understand the interactions between chemicals,
speculators, nations, and users.
15
The frst tools that supported the storing of contact information were not all
that different from using a rolodex, a list of people you know with some key
contact information. The Contacts section in Microsoft Outlook also has this
rolodex functionality, with the added option to store extra information about
your contact, such as birthday, manager, their kids etc. The additional infor-
mation is used to be courteous to your contacts and to maintain a good rela-
tionship with them. It is always nice if someone seems to remember the
names of your seven kids. The main problem with this way of storing contact
and additional relationship information is that its hardly ever up to date or,
even worse, it may be incorrect.
This is where the online, social network software comes in. It allows you to
stay current with your relationship information. Your contacts will maintain
their own information. A site like LinkedIn, a social network focused on
professional relations, gives the user the ability to connect to colleagues,
14 http://blog.hbs.edu/faculty/amcafee/index.php/faculty_amcafee_v3/the_ties_that_fnd/.
15 http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/10/the-connected-economy.html.
104
former colleagues, clients, and partners. When a colleague moves to another
job you are still connected and have the newly updated information availa-
ble. In this way, maintaining relations and staying connected is much more
accurate and convenient. Social networks are expanding, too, sharing more
information, and giving you not only the names of your contacts seven kids
but also their vacation photos. MySpace and Facebook are examples of pop-
ular social networks that are used more in the private sphere, though private
and personal are increasingly mixed.
Figure 5.14: MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson, arguably the most popular individual
on the internet with 240+ million MySpace friends (he is added by default to every
MySpace account)
105
Figure 5.15: LinkedIn
SNS [Social Network Software] lets users build a network of friends, keep abreast of
what that network is up to, and even exploit it by doing things like posting a question
that all friends will see. All of these activities, especially the latter two, seem like
theyd be highly valuable within a company, especially a large and/or geographically
distributed one where you cant access all colleagues just by bumping into them in
the hallway.
16
Online networks commonly have the ability to import contacts from a client
application like Outlook contacts. This is useful during the initial phase of a
social network, but isnt the killer feature on which to build and fnd new
relations and contacts. Its importing your strong ties, those contacts with
whom you already have a good relationship. Finding and connecting to new
contacts, coming up with new ideas for innovation and new sources for
knowledge sharing that is more important.
Intuitively speaking, this means that whatever is to be diffused can reach a larger
number of people, and traverse greater social distance (i.e., path length), when
passed through weak ties rather than strong. If one tells a rumor to all his close
friends, and they do likewise, many will hear the rumor a second and third time, since
those linked by strong ties tend to share friends. If the motivation to spread the rumor
is dampened a bit on each wave of retelling, then the rumor moving through strong
ties is much more likely to be limited to a few cliques than that going via weak ones;
bridges will not be crossed.
17
16 http://blog.hbs.edu/faculty/amcafee/index.php/faculty_amcafee_v3/the_ties_that_fnd/.
17 http://www.stanford.edu/dept/soc/people/mgranovetter/documents/granstrengthweakties.pdf.
106
Social Network Software is enabling the creation of these valuable weak-ties
in different ways. For example, most of them have functionality like maybe
you also know these people, or viewers of this also viewed. This tech-
nology helps to build bridges between networks and helps to connect with
the rest of the world.
Figure 5.16: Six Degrees of Separation
Six degrees of separation: if a person is one step away from each person they know
and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know,
then everyone is an average of six steps away from each person on Earth. The
translation of the six degrees of separation into business terms is that if you need
someone to help you, the best person in the world can be reached in at most six
steps.
18
Figure 5.17: Three degrees of LinkedIn connections of one of the authors
18 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation.
107
Using the Network for Rating and Reputation
An interesting thing happens when our friends and contacts start rating
information they fnd. We know who they are and we trust their judgment.
So now we have a method that almost automatically starts to make sense out
of the information overload: things online my friends deem valuable must
be valuable. But also: companies, product and services that my friends deem
valuable must also be valuable to me.
Figure 5.18: Digg
Even if we dont know the people, statistics can help us. Its almost a democ-
racy: the more people are drawn somewhere, the more valuable the informa-
tion from that place probably is. There are several mechanisms that support
rating of webpages. The biggest examples are social bookmarking sites such
as StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us and Digg. These sites enable the social dis-
covery of anything of interest online. Digg.com is a website that makes it
easy for people to share (review) information and news posts, while other
people can vote and comment on those articles. It helps to sort through the
multitude of blog posts and articles and bring up the most valuable content
of the moment. It is also is a trend-sensitive mechanism: if something is
hot, it tends to push other things to the background.
108
Figure 5.19: Del.icio.us is another social bookmarking site that provides mechanisms
for rating and adding comments and tags to sites
There are many other sites
19
that use a similar kind of voting mechanism.
DZone is a link-sharing community site for developers that uses voting
buttons, which have the power to move an article up or down a list.
Figure 5.20: A message on DZone.com with Vote up/Vote down buttons
The social bookmarking sites also help you fnd new friends: for example,
StumbleUpon will analyze your preferences (which pages did you like, which
not) and match these with the preferences of other stumblers. The people
that most closely match appear on your friends page where you can look at
their profles, read their blogs and perhaps get in touch. Be forewarned when
trying out these tools: they can be addictive, because they will lead you to
increasingly interesting internet resources.
For businesses, the most volatile examples are sites where the subject of
evaluation is the companies and their services. If you use Amazon and eBay
to do trade, the trust people will have in you, and thus the amount of business
19 http://www.blogmarketingtactics.com/social-bookmarking/social-bookmarking-top-links.html.
109
you will do, is directly proportional to the evaluation scores people give. On
sites such as Angieslist or Yelp people evaluate companies, on TripAdvisor
they evaluate holiday destinations, on JobVent they evaluate workplaces etc.
For any kind of product, service or company a place can be found online
where people can share their opinions.
Discovery
The so-called knowledge worker spends a considerable amount of time look-
ing for documents and information by browsing the intranet, portals or
searching the internet. The internet gave people access to billions, probably
trillions, of articles, news items, songs, videos and other kind of information.
With millions of people connected to it, many adding more information daily,
we end up with more than we can handle. Just as an example, at YouTube
13 hours of video is uploaded every minute, which is roughly equivalent to
recording 800 TV channels simultaneously. According to Technorati, in 2006
there were 1.5 million blog posts in a week, which means there were about
10 new blog posts every second.
20
And every one of these posts, videos, pres-
entations and comments could have information that is relevant to your busi-
ness, to your strategy or to your clients.
133 million blog records indexed by Technorati since 2002
7.4 million blogs posted in last 120 days
900,000 blogs posted in 24 hours
900,000 blogs posted in 24 hours
76,000 blogs with Technorati Authority of 50+
Top 100 blogs by Technorati Authority
133 million blog records indexed by Technorati since 2002
76,000 blogs with Technorati Authority of 50+
Top 100 blogs by Technorati Authority
Technorati Authority is the number
of blogs linking to a website in the
last six months. The higher the number,
the more Authority the blog has.
4PVSDF5FDIOPSBUJ
Figure 5.21: Blog Volume
20 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/16/technology/16tube.html?_r=1&8dp&oref=slogin.
110
According to a study from Basex
21
, information overload is now costing busi-
nesses $900 billion per year in wasted productivity. The frst, most basic
solution available is a search engine such as Microsoft Enterprise Search or
the Googlebox. Nowadays we can install search solutions to fnd all sorts
of internal and external information. Old email archives, reports, graphics,
numbers: anything can be indexed and found, provided you know the right
search terms. That is where the problem lies: a lot of information is not stored
with the right metadata. Some search engines can be confgured to deduct
meta-information from the place where things are found. But there is another
solution.
We have seen rating as a mechanism to make valuable information easier
to fnd. Another, similar mechanism is tagging. Where rating basically adds
a thumbs up or thumbs down as meta-information, tags can convey much more
information. They help catalog.
Tagging makes searching for information easier. Adding tags to documents,
photos, videos or something else is classifying the content with simple one-
word descriptions. Think about how stock photo companies have long been
using this type of metadata in the keywords they use to catalog photos.
Figure 5.22: Tagging Photos
All kind of tools have the ability to add tags to content. Many fle formats
even embed the information in the fles themselves. As an example, with
Microsoft Word you can add tags to documents in the save dialog screen, and
Windows Live Photo Gallery has a sophisticated mechanism to recognize
faces, so you can add tags for contacts from your address book. Also, most
blog engines have tagging capabilities.
21 http://www.micropersuasion.com/2008/12/calculate-the-c.html.
111
Figure 5.23: Windows Live Photo Gallery
Tagging is using human insight to classify things. For humans, tagging is
simple and straightforward. It should become a natural part of everyday life
for people: whenever we open or touch an item we would quickly add some
tags to help us and others fnd it later. We could tag documents and pictures
as well as people and events. If it is easy enough to do, this might be how we
would achieve the holy grail of knowledge management. For computers it is
still a great challenge to get the right grasp of concepts and context. Serious
scientifc effort is put into automating analysis and classifcation of items.
Natural Language search and Artifcial Intelligence are the topics of research.
One of these efforts is ALIPR, which is a service that strives to automatically
tag images and make them searchable.
Figure 5.24: ALIPR
112
Web 3.0
Understanding how to query the web is valuable and having relationship ties
is even more important. Connections are helping us fnd information by add-
ing meta-information and rating content. Meanwhile, there is already talk of
Web 3.0, where the web of pages (Web 1.0) and the web of people (Web 2.0)
are enhanced with even more logic and functionality that should make the
web intelligent, turning it into the semantic web and forever solving our
problems with searching the web. From Readwriteweb.com:
Web 3.0 offers detailed data exchange to every point on the Internet, a machine in
the middle, with three main characteristics:
Smart internetworking 1.
The Internet itself will get smarter and become a gathering tool to execute rela-
tively complex tasks and analyze collective online behavior.
Seamless applications 2.
Web 3.0 theories suggest that all applications will ft together, a continuation of
open standards where all applications will be able to communicate. APIs will read
data from any platform and provide a single point of reference.
Distributed databases 3.
Web 3.0 will need somewhere to store very complex and memory-intensive infor-
mation. It will require ontologies to establish relationships between information
sources, search millions of nodes, and scan billions of data records at once.
22
Notifcation
Staying up to date is an important part of working in a collaborative environ-
ment. You need to know what your peers are working on and, from a com-
pany point of view, you need to know what people are saying about your
product and also what your competitors are doing. We dont want to be con-
tinuously searching for the things we need to know, and also want to be
notifed immediately when something important happens.
22 http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/semantic_web_advertising.php.
113
Figure 5.25: Offce Communicator
23
News Feeds
Web feeds are a bit like a subscription to a webpage. Using a standard mes-
sage format called RSS (Really Simple Syndication) we can use a special
reader to alert us whenever, for example, a webpage has changed, new infor-
mation has been posted or new comments have been added.
RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works such
as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video in a standardized format. An
RSS document (which is called a feed, web feed, or channel) includes full or
summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. Web feeds
beneft publishers by letting them syndicate content quickly and automatically.
24
Most collaborative systems like blogs, portals with document libraries such
as SharePoint, wikis and microblogging sites offer RSS feed by subscription.
Initially RSS was used for updates on web pages only, but now it is used to
23 http://ofce.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA102064651033.aspx.
24 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(fle_format).
114
communicate notifcations of all sorts of events. Even system administrators
can use RSS to communicate about server status updates.
RSS feeds can be read and aggregated in dif-
ferent client software tools or on specialized
websites. Microsoft Outlook and Internet
Explorer both have a mechanism to subscribe
to RSS feeds. The beneft of using a feed
reader, or so-called feed aggregator or news
reader, is that information from different
places on the web can be read in one place:
all notifcations, all news is in one place
(and no longer in our email inbox).
The web-based readers offer the same functionality as client software: they
aggregate feeds and make them accessible from one place. They also offer
some interesting extra functionality that takes advantage of its inherently
cloud-like nature, such as sharing feeds with friends through social net-
works.
Figure 5.27: Bloglines
Notifcations Are Interruptions?
Most of us are already used to notifcations. When we receive an email a
small balloon will pop up on the desktop to notify us that there is new email.
Also, Windows itself has many kinds of notifcation messages: youve seen
one when the connection to the network is lost. Other kinds of tools also have
notifcation mechanisms. MSN Messenger can notify you when your friends
Figure 5.26: RSS Feeds
115
come online or when they want to talk to you. Twirl,
a desktop version of Twitter, can notify you when
someone whose twitter messages you want to see
posts a new message (a tweet).
Some notifications are important, some not; it
depends on what you are doing. Since many systems
are sending notifcations to you, and trying to get
your attention, you might end up paralyzed by the information overload. It
is easy to subscribe to lots of valuable sites and blogs, and it is important to
stay up to date about important people, information, companies, and projects,
but other feeds might have lower priority.
The generation of digital natives seems to be able to cope better with the
constant interruption, but the resulting continuous partial attention has an
enormous effect on people. Linda Stone has written about this: Like so many
things, in small doses, continuous partial attention can be a very functional
behavior. However, in large doses, it contributes to a stressful lifestyle, to
operating in crisis management mode, and to a compromised ability to refect,
to make decisions, and to think creatively. In a 24/7, always-on world, con-
tinuous partial attention used as our dominant attention mode contributes
to a feeling of overwhelm, over-stimulation and to a sense of being unful-
flled. We are so accessible, were inaccessible. The latest, greatest powerful
technologies have contributed to our feeling increasingly powerless.
25
A flter mechanism is a must. You need some fltering to be able to distin-
guish between company related, project related, personal or system related
notifcations and to stay focused on your job. Managing your interruptions
is important if you want to ensure that you actually get your work done. Some
notifcations need to pop up the moment they arrive (your project has a new
deadline, and it is tomorrow). Some notifcations you need to see when you
have the time for them (we will have a new team member). Other notifca-
tions may be left for you to read on your phone in the moments spent waiting
for the bus (the new company slogan is).
To manage interruptions, it helps to get accustomed to prioritizing according
to groups. Think of how a cell phone will allow you to create different ring-
tones alerting you to calls from different groups or individuals. Microsoft
25 http://continuouspartialattention.jot.com/WikiHome (no longer available).
116
Offce Communicator has a similar notifcation-fltering mechanism, called
Interruption Management:
Interruption Management: You can assign a Team access level to other contacts to
create a preferential list of people who are allowed to communicate with you when
your Presence status is set to Do Not Disturb. In addition, you can manually set your
Presence status to Do Not Disturb from the Presence menu or from incoming IM,
Call, or Conference alerts. When your Presence state is set to Do Not Disturb, you
see, by default, only urgent alerts from Team members.
Integrating All into a Personal Mix
There are now so many information channels that people are looking for
ways to connect and integrate them. One way is to use tagging with social
networks to prioritize blog notifcations. Interact with a group of colleagues
and receive updates when someone posts a message to your forum.
There are many ways to integrate, from complete automated processes to a
simple portal interface that displays different components. A special type of
integration is the mashup.
Mashup Integration
Mashup is a term used for a solution that is created by combining and con-
fguring multiple underlying services. It is a fexible way to easily create
solutions that ft the individual need. When we want to optimize collabora-
tion between organizations, or we fnd recurring patterns in our collabora-
tion (e.g. we have a certain meeting every week for which we need to book a
room, order meals and organize transport), mashups can provide support at
a suitable scale for this collaboration.
Wikipedia defnes mashup as a web application hybrid, which combines
data from more than one source into a single integrated tool. The most com-
mon examples are the combinations of geographic visualization with other
information, like the visualization of Outlook contacts within Live Maps, or
Google Maps with location information of real-estate data. The combination
of the two different services makes a new application with more functional-
ity than the different parts provide.
117
One of the main advantages of mashups is they are self-servicing: employ-
ees, businesses and consumers can make their own mashup, gather services
they use and combine them however they want
in whatever way works best for them. They are
the true tools of a prosumer.
Mashups can be created manually using the
interfaces available from the different serv-
ices. But there are also web-based mashup edi-
tors. Microsoft Popfy and Yahoo! Pipes are
examples of tools where you can drag, drop
and link different services to each other,
thereby creating your own mashup in a matter
of minutes, without the need for (much) pro-
gramming. The underlying technology of web
services provides standard interfaces that
allow easy, though sometimes still fairly tech-
nical, combination.26
Figure 5.29: Microsoft Popfy offers a drag-and-drop integration solution to create your
own mashup in minutes
26 http://blogs.zdnet.com/Hinchclife/?p=35.
Figure 5.28: Enterprise
Mashups in the Web 2.0 Era
26
118
A much simpler way to integrate is to link different services together without
many steps or tools but by simply using a ready-made tool that integrates a
number of services. There are specifc tools available that connect multiple
media and feeds into one. And the tools themselves have started to knit
together, as well. Most social networks have RSS feeds available, and social
networks have integrated status information or can connect to Twitter.
Facebook, for example, has the where are you what are you doing box in
the upper right. Yahoo! Fire Eagle takes the concept of presence awareness
even further with various tools, including the ability to share your geographic
(GPS) location with friends.
Figure 5.30: Yahoo! Fire Eagle
Another simple example of integration is Xobni (inbox spelled backwards).
It shows what is possible when you combine online communities with an
email client. Xobni is an add-in for Microsoft Outlook. It automatically shows
information about your contacts and how many emails you have sent and
received. It also connects with LinkedIn to show a selected contacts public
photo and contacts that are related based on your email traffc. It is a simple
tool that can help prioritize email and enhance the social structure of col-
laboration.
Perhaps the ultimate combination of news and social networks is Friend-
Feed: it allows you to combine all your activities online into one location.
This information in turn is available to your network. In this way you can
stay current and keep others current. FriendFeed can integrate your blog-
posts, Twitter tweets, YouTube videos, slideshare presentations and any
other online activity. It also has the option to use rooms for fltering infor-
mation.
119
Figure 5.31: Xobni
Figure 5.32: FriendFeed
120
Finally! The End of Email?
A revealing statement that hints at what a new way of work could look like
was made by a student talking to her older brother: I only use email to get
hold of older people, like you. It might seem impossible, but try to imagine
a workplace where the frst thing in the morning is not opening the email. If
we were to use all these other options we have available, our email traffc
could greatly diminish:
People: for information about people, informal notes on what they are
doing, profle information, and notes on their friends and their activities
we go to a personal profle page (their FriendFeed
27
).
Deliverables (documents, events, corporate decisions): for working on
items we want to be working on, we visit an online place where the deliv-
erable is central, which may be a project, document, event or any other
lasting asset.
Questions and answers: we post them to a forum that is visited by our
colleagues and friends. An archive function allows us to look up questions
that were asked before.
Updates, notifcations: these are grouped in our newsreader. We prioritize
the notifcations and can decide to take action on some and ignore others.
Checking if someone can be reached, quick interactions: we use instant
messenger for quick questions or chitchat.
Task assignment and progress reporting is better done using an online
project management tool.
Etc.
If we think this through, very little remains for which email is really the best
and only solution. And once other solutions have the majority of the traffc,
email will quickly die down: if everybody is posting messages on my Face-
book wall, thats where Ill go for messages and Ill start to forget my email.
And although information can be spread over many sites, this does not mean
we have to surf to all these locations: personal portals and dashboards will
integrate all of them into one, enhanced by mashups and other integration
tools on the desktop. Even your email client can be the one that integrates
them all.
27 FriendFeed.com.
121
5.4
Collaboration Software Matrix
Every kind of collaboration needs specifc tools. What kinds of collaborations
are there? In the previous paragraphs we discussed several types of col-
laboration tooling and their capabilities what they are and what you use
them for. But when to use which is a more diffcult question. People use email
for all kinds of collaborations, but in what kind of situation might you prefer
to use blogs or wikis? To answer this you have to separate collaboration into
several parts.
Up until recently we still used the telephone as our primary real-time, syn-
chronous communication tool. When we have to work in groups, we use it
for conference calls. Not something Bell thought of when he invented the
telephone. There is a key difference between synchronous and asynchro-
nous communication, just as there were key differences between the early
telegraph and the telephone.
Software that facilitates communication and collaboration is available in
many forms, from mail systems, where communication is provisioned in an
indirect way, to interactive games where people play in real-time against
each other. The time-place matrix
28
pictures this. This matrix has two dimen-
sions in which collaboration differ: place and time. People may sometimes
work on the same project at the same time in the same place for example,
in the overly used on-site meetings. People may also work on the same project
in different places at different times for example, by outsourcing to India,
where there are different time zones.
In practice, email may be placed in the different time / different place quad-
rant and instant messaging will be more directed to the same time / different
place quadrant.
Each quadrant represents a specifc need that must be met by collaboration
tools. When communicating in the different time / different place quadrant
there is a need for a message box, such as an inbox, where we will receive
our messages. This is different when we want same-time communication. In
that case, there is no need for an inbox, but rather a notifcation mechanism
alerting the receiver that someone wants to communicate and alerting the
28 Johansen, R., 1988. Current user approaches to groupware. In R. Johansen (ed.), Groupware: Compu-
ter support for business teams. Free Press, New York, 1988.
122
sender as to whether the person he wants to contact is available, neither of
which is necessary in a different-time situation.
Time
P
l
a
c
e
Same
Same
Dierent
Dierent
Figure 5.33: Time-Place Matrix
Besides the capabilities the tools must have, the people who want to com-
municate must understand what kind of communication is to take place.
Sending an urgent message via a tool that supports a different time / differ-
ent place mechanism isnt the best option. This is something you see hap-
pening often: people sending an urgent email expecting that the receiver
will read it in real-time, not knowing that he just did the management course
How to overcome email overload where they told him to open email only
twice a day.
Time
P
l
a
c
e
Same
Face to Face Interaction
Ongoing Coordination
Learning Laboratories
Simultaneous interaction
across distances
Interaction across
time and distance
AnyTime
AnyWhere
AnyOne
Virtual Classroom
(Centra, Horizon Wimba,
Instant Messaging)
Email, LMS, LCS
(Blackboard, WebCT)
Class Same
Dierent
Dierent
Figure 5.34: Time-Place Matrix Applied on eLearning
29
29 http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Computer_Mediated_Instruction.
123
Many-to-Many, Many-to-One, One-to-Many, One-to-One
Another dimension to explore is the one of how many people are involved.
Collaboration can take place with just the interaction between two people or
with larger groups. Different ways to interact ask for different tools. We can
draw a matrix and use it to situate the different collaborative tools. Depend-
ing on the intended use, different tools will be better suited in certain situ-
ations than others. As you can see at a glance, most tools are well suited for
asynchronous collaboration between many people (in this context, many
being more than two).
Time
W
a
y
Same
One
Many
Dierent
Video conferencing
Presence awareness
Whiteboarding
...
t
t
t
Team workspace
Discussion threads
Wikis
Blogs
Shared bookmarks
Social networking
Tagging
Syndication
t
t
t
t
t
t
t
t
Instant messaging
Audio conferencing
...
t
t
E-mail
Scheduling
Task management
...
t
t
t
Figure 5.35: Collaboration tools mapped on the Time-Way Matrix. The number of
people working together is recorded on the Way axis
Knowing and understanding in what quadrant your communication and
collaboration takes place helps to choose the right platform. Each tool has
its pros and cons in any specifc quadrant, being better suited for one than
another. There is no platform available that provides seamless communi-
cation in every quadrant. Even email as a conversation tool is really only
ideally suited for a one-to-one situation where we have to keep in mind
that it is asynchronous: the receiver might frst read your mail three days
from now.
124
5.5
Conclusion
As we have seen, there are great tools available. Out there on the wide open
internet they have a following of their own, and nothing is keeping us from
either joining these tools on the internet or (if we have to) implementing our
own internal copy. A corporate Twitter might relieve email overload. A
corporate Facebook could improve the social cohesion within the company.
While email will be long-lived in the business world, expect to learn new
tools and start working in the different ways enabled by these tools. And if
we really want to enter the conversation, we have to be out there in the real
world. Once the groundwork is in place, we can select the right tools or leave
people to fnd the right tools themselves.
The provisioning model for these tools and services will be a hybrid: some
things will be internal to the company, while others will be in the cloud.
What this looks like, what the impact is and how we can make the right deci-
sions is the topic of the next chapters. We will discuss Software + Services
and get more specifc on the topic of Social Computing for business.
125
6
Groundwork for a New Organization
The ways that people work together shift over time, which can affect your culture of
collaboration. More important, the introduction of collaboration technologies can also
change the culture of collaboration. If handled properly, the tools and the culture will
co-evolve.
Dennis Kennedy
1
6.1
Introduction
Collaboration is essential to business and many tools are available to support
the various capabilities that make up collaboration. But just installing the
tools, or using a tool from the cloud, does not make you an Enterprise 2.0
overnight. The build it and they will come adage does not apply. This chap-
ter will go into the groundwork, the other elements that need to be in place
before collaboration can be successful. It will address the soft part of col-
laboration, addressing elements such as trust, culture and reward.
Empty SharePoint, Messy Wikis a Disaster Scenario
Unfortunately, the scenario described below is all too common. It describes
how incorrect adoption of tools can hinder collaboration before improving
it. It is the case of an organization going about the implementation of col-
laborative tools in the same way they select and implement any other kind
of software tool.
Imagine a company where knowledge workers are becoming less and less
productive because they spend more and more time searching for the right
information in the vast directory structure of their network. It is hard to
document repeatable tasks and knowledge leaves the company whenever an
employee fnds another job. The company sets out to solve these productiv-
ity and knowledge management problems and forms a team of IT and (some)
business people to fnd a solution.
1 denniskennedy.com/blog.
126
A top-down, centralized decision is made, and the company decides to install
SharePoint as their primary collaboration platform. After the decision is
made and the software is acquired, the company starts with the necessary
investment in infrastructure and begins training operations how to install,
organize and manage the collaboration platform. When everything is in
place, the infrastructure is working, backup procedures are in place, guide-
lines are written and the operations team knows what to do, the transition
to support is done, and the new collaboration can start. Most likely the ini-
tiative now has a fancy name and perhaps a slogan.
Senior management then sends a company-wide email announcing, with
pride and joy, that there is a collaborative platform available for anyone to
use. There are private sites for every employee, wikis, blogs, discussion
forums and portals. Management expects new forms of collaboration to start
soon, and is happily calling their organization 2.0-ready. They surely have
solved all the productivity and knowledge sharing problems.
The employees receive the announcement emails and are pressed to use it
every day. Curious and perhaps a little excited, some not all of the
employees visit the enterprise portal and look around, fll in their personal
details and perhaps upload a profle picture.
Figure 6.1: SharePoint Personal Details Page
127
6 Groundwork for a New Organization
Looking further, the employees discover that there isnt any real information
(yet): the wiki pages are empty, blog posts are rare and the forums dont have
any questions. After a quick look around, the employees go back to their
work, thinking, I will get back later this week when there will be more
information. Meanwhile most of the employees still use email as their pri-
mary collaboration tool, not knowing about or not comfortable with the col-
laborative aspects of the newly introduced portal.
Figure 6.2: Empty Wiki
After a slow start, some people will have found their way to the portal. Most
likely these are the newer generation or the people that had specifc needs
or were tired of using fle-shares to transfer large fles. With some people
using the new platform and most people still using email, they will have the
worst of both worlds: for example, there will still be uncertainty as to which
is the latest version of any document. People will be looking in several places
to fnd the current status, and its unclear. If people from different depart-
ments were to try to create a proposal together, a lot of effort would go into
coordination and integration of the different pieces of the proposal. The wiki
pages, intended to be changed and updated by all to provide a common
knowledge base, are empty or contain temporary notes, scribbles or informa-
tion copied from elsewhere. The team portals and project portals have some
structure but most elements are empty or outdated. The collaborative space
looks like an abandoned town with empty houses.
128
It is clear that this scenario is not the scenario management had in mind
when introducing the new platform. It is also clear that introducing a new
platform in itself will not change the way people work. Of course, in real life,
many organizations realize that the human aspect of any implementation is
important and doubly so with collaborative technologies. Not addressing the
use beforehand seems like a beginners mistake. So what do we need to think
about in order to avert disaster scenarios?
Expecting Miracles?
Before we go any further, we need to examine the expectations. Especially we need to
compare internet scale to corporate scale. If we see successful sites online with a
thriving online community, where people are adding and improving information every
day (e.g. Wikipedia) and uploading many interesting documents continuously (e.g.
Slideshare) we cannot help but want this for our own company, too. The problem is
that you probably do not have enough employees to achieve the same trafc to an
internal site. Only 1% of all internet users in your country is still a multiple of 100%
of all of your employees. And since some initiatives need some critical mass to survive,
it pays to look for alternatives. It might just be possible to become part of the external
community instead of recreating one indoors.
Also, dont be disappointed when only 10% of your workforce joins an online com-
munity: the numbers are still much higher than in the general public!
6.2
What You Need to Succeed
Creating new modes of collaboration supported by technology can only be
done by addressing the human aspect. More specifcally, we need to address
some of the worries and obstacles people encounter when collaborating using
technology. The three most important concerns are:
Trust. Trust is a condition for social interaction. People will only work
with people, companies, tools and information they know they can trust.
Before we can expect collaboration to take off online, there must be a way
for people to get this trust. And a topic closely associated with trust
when it refers to people is Identity.
Collaborative culture. If one individual is the greatest collaborator in the
world, he or she is probably not getting anywhere. Only when all people
involved are part of the same collaborative culture will new levels of cre-
ativity and productivity be reached. A collaborative culture consists of
many things, including:
129
Collaborative leadership; -
Shared goals; -
Shared model of the truth; and -
Rules or norms. -
Reward. Changing the way people work takes effort, so it must be clear
for the parties involved what they will gain, at a personal level, from col-
laborating in a new way. Surprisingly, a reward for successful collabora-
tion is most often of a non-fnancial nature.
Figure 6.3: A graphic used in a blog discussion by Sam Lawrence of Jive software to
explore how, in his view, collaboration is composed of coCreation, coOperation,
coLearning, coOrdination, coRespect and coSolving, with the individual me back on
top
2
6.3
A Model for Trust
Who can you trust these days? And when you expect someone to collaborate
with you, how can you prove they can trust you and the information you
provide? And if I trust you, and you trust your friend Joe, can I also auto-
matically trust Joe? Does Joe make good on his promises to me as he does on
his promises to you?
2 http://gobigalways.com/anatomy-of-the-enterprise-octopus/.
130
Trust, and its closely related cousin transparency, come to mind when talking
about the internet and technology. Or, as a great quote goes, Trust is the
business word for love. For some companies, trust is what builds the brand.
Larry Page, co-founder of Google, said this in discussing Google:
One of the big assets we have is a big consumer brand. It is very clear that our users
are everybody and that is who we are answerable to. We need you all to trust us or
else we have no business. (Sunday Times)
3
Why would Google have no business if we, the consumers, didnt trust them?
It seems obvious that if we didnt trust the search results, we wouldnt use
Google. It is the same with other aspects of collaboration: if we dont trust
the people, tools or information, we will not use them. In some instances its
not even that we dont trust the information, but that we have no way of
knowing if we can trust the information.
Someone writing on Wikipedia suggests, Trust is a relationship of reliance.
A trusted party is presumed to seek to fulfll policies, ethical codes, law and
their previous promises.
4
If we are confdent that the promise will be ful-
flled, we will trust. If we see a recurring pattern of promises that are being
fulflled, our trust will increase. If we see even one broken promise, the trust
can evaporate instantly.
Trusting People
Trust is not a hard fact or a number we can quantify like a credit rating.
There are no universally accepted certifcates of trustworthiness. We are
most familiar with the concept of trusting people: our family and friends gain
a reputation based on our prior experiences with them and the social struc-
ture to which they belong. It works the same way within collaborative ini-
tiatives: the more we know of someone, and the more we know of the organ-
izational and social structure they are part of, the better able we are to
determine whether we can trust that person or not. This is also where online
social networks provide value.
3 http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article3997912.ece?token=null
&ofset=12&page=2.
4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_%28social_sciences%29.
131
In collaboration across geographical or organizational boundaries, trust gets
special attention: if I have never seen the person I am working with, it is
harder to build trust. If we cannot look someone in the eye, trust doesnt
come automatically. This is one reason why the collaborative tools that focus
on supporting online conferencing are including video-feeds as much as
possible.
In 2007, the Economist Intelligence Unit published a paper (sponsored by
Cisco) with the title Collaboration: Transforming the Way Business
Works:
The paper reported that there is a widespread imperative to adopt collaborative
business models and noted that trust is a critical building block in collaboration.
However, those seemingly simple conclusions can quickly become complicated in
todays business world, where the forces of globalization and the knowledge econ-
omy are converging with technology and demography.
5
Figure 6.4: Requirements for Excellence in Collaboration
In this study the researchers found different levels of intensity with which
people are working together. It starts from a situation where there is no trust
5 See http:// graphics.eiu.com/upload/cisco_trust.pdf, where the paper is discussed in the preface to the
Economist Intelligence Units more recent paper, The Role of Trust in Business Collaboration.
132
at all and people dont really collaborate but processes need to be explicitly
coordinated. As levels of trust increase, different methods of collaboration
become viable, and move through cooperation up to true collaboration where
people are working together to achieve a shared goal.
Me
Circles of Trust
Blogosphere/
Trustworthy sources
Edubloggersphere/
Friends of friends
Friends & Trusted
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Figure 6.5: Trust levels and several collaborative tools.
6
This diagram shows how
different tools (or media) can be used with different levels of trust: closer to me means
greater trust. It is also a great illustration of Marshall McLuhans statement that
Technology is an extension of the human body
7
6 http://www.fickr.com/photos/nessman/2590572476/.
7 Global Village, 1953.
133
Identity
In order to trust someone, I must be able to identify that person. To delegate
trust, I must be able to accept the reference of someone I recognize. To ena-
ble collaboration, you need a way to identify people. Especially when we are
using cloud computing to offer collaborative solutions, this is an important
challenge. Microsoft was one of the vendors offering Microsoft Passport as
a way to uniformly identify people online, but due to other trust issues, this
didnt gain the wide acceptance expected or hoped for. By now, the focus is
on open identity standards (OpenID) that are being implemented by a range
of vendors, among which Microsoft but also Facebook and others. Here we
also see the crossover from trusting people (who is working with me) to
trusting the technology (can the technology prove to me who Im working
with).
When an organization is looking to initiate collaboration between multiple
parties, it must frst fnd a way to identify the different parties in such a way
that they can start to build trust.
Trust and Technology
Whenever we are using technology to communicate and collaborate, the
platform itself becomes a factor in the collaboration. If our email is unreli-
able, the process will break down. If the site we are using to exchange infor-
mation is not secure, we will not post our materials there. If people can take
on other identities, I am less likely to build a trust relationship based on
someones avatar (their online representation).
Technology itself can also get in the way of trust: for example, this popup
message below will appear when a web browser needs to update itself to
show a certain webpage. For a common business-user, this might look puz-
zling: the browser asks if I trust the website, but it does not tell me why I
should trust that site or how I can fnd out if a site is trustworthy. Users must
fgure out by themselves, without any additional information, whether to
trust this site.
134
Figure 6.6: Trusting a Website
From an organizational perspective, this means the end users must become
web-savvy: they must develop a sense of security online. What sites can I
trust, what are normal procedures, how do I recognize a secure site, etc.
(Which, when you think about it, is not all that different from what banks do
to train their customers when they are banking online.)
Service-Level Agreements
Trust depends on how much someone is able to deliver as promised, so
describing the promises makes sense. In the Software as a Service space,
this means describing the service-level agreement. In these cases we replace
blind trust by an actual contract (or at least a formal expectation).
Most services that are generically available online, which you can use with-
out needing to sign a contract, have a very simple service-level agreement:
if the service is up, its up; if the service is down, its down. There are very
few guarantees, and if you want better guarantees you most likely will have
to pay for them. What happens when your Gmail goes down for a day? Or
what if your website disappears and there is no backup? What do you do if
the free website statistics engine you are using messes up the statistics, ren-
dering a years worth of data useless? Who can you call, and how fast will
they respond?
There are many different approaches to building trust. Salesforce.com, the
CRM as a service provider, offers insight in their uptime to gain trust from
their customers (trust through transparency). When we as consumers can
see what the uptime is of their services, at least we know what we are buying.
Amazon has an approach where they simply offer money back in case their
AWS cloud services fail. It remains to be seen whether you are adequately
compensated for your loss if the compensation for a day lost in sales is just
the rebate of one days fee for hosting the services, but at least it is an explicit
SLA.
135
Figure 6.7: Trustsaas.com is providing real-time insight into the status of several
services available online
8
Figure 6.8: AWS Service Health Dashboard
8 http://trustsaas.com/.
136
Downtime, or more explicitly, not having access to online services, depends
upon the weakest link. Especially when combining services from multiple
locations and multiple service providers, the combination may soon prove to
be too unreliable to use for important business processes. On the other hand,
in-house technology is not without its downtime either, and SaaS providers
generally have better uptime and response times than the internal IT sys-
tems. For the end user, only the reliability of the whole solution matters, as
illustrated by fragments of a discussion on LifeHacker.com on the topic Do
You Trust the Cloud?:
I dont trust the cloud anymore than I trust my hard disk. In fact, Ive had more trou-
ble with the cloud than I have had with hard disks from site outages like yesterday
to cable outages to a beehive in my cable box that killed my cable with honey! Ubiq-
uitous sync is the answer. The info should reside on PC, Smartphone and Net other-
wise it is only partially usable.
Are we talking downtime, data loss, security, privacy or what? I trust in Google,
maybe because they havent bitten me yet. But Ill change my tune in a second if they
lose all my data or lock my account without reason.
9
And then there is the reliability of the service provider itself, the one hosting
the technology. Especially in these fnancially turbulent times, the choice of
service provider warrants some extra attention. You dont want to choose a
service provider that might go out of business anytime soon. Especially
among the providers whose services are paid for by advertising, this unpre-
dictability leads consumers to be extra cautious, to the advantage of well-
established vendors like Microsoft. And one smart move to limit risk is
always to back up your data elsewhere, just in case.
Trusting Information
We can trust the people we are collaborating with, and we can trust the
technology and the provider of the technology, but can we be sure that a
given document in our online portal is indeed the latest report we need? If
you have ever used an online collaborative solution, you have probably come
across documents where you werent sure whether they were drafts or fnal
versions, or whether the information in the document was really true. Or you
9 http://lifehacker.com/400268/do-you-trust-the-cloud.
137
may have seen a poll on the intranet, but you are not sure who participated
and what the value of the poll really is. People and companies that use col-
laborative tools need to make a conscious effort to create information, to turn
data into information, to add value to statistics, etc.
A great example is Wikipedia: how can you trust the information somebody
has written about a topic? People who love Wikipedia will say that the crowd
will make sure the content is correct. Yet anyone can edit a wiki, so who can
say that vendors or competitors are not polluting Wikipedia with marketing
statements instead of real information? Or what about the topics that are
most heavily debated? A good sample of pages with a dubious history can be
found in Wikipedias own very long list of Most vandalized pages.
10
However, the quality of entries is uneven; sometimes entries are even factu-
ally incorrect. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales admits on the website that on
any given day, [the quality of] any entry might be up or down.
11
Truth be told, Wikipedia has cleaned up drastically in recent years by putting
more emphasis on references, removing original thought and checking if,
for example, politicians or companies are editing their own information in
their favor.
The way in which Web 2.0 technologies can help make information more
reliable and trustworthy is by combining the trust in people, platform and
information.
Trust Needs a Network
On Amazon.com we can see product evaluations. On eBay.com we can rate
the seller AND the buyer. Reputations here are extremely valuable. On
LinkedIn people are encouraged to recommend the people they think stand
out. Many other sites use the opinions and evaluations of the crowd to help
customers make decisions, by helping to make sense out of the multitude of
options. They build trust by creating the right expectations.
10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Most_vandalized_pages.
11 http://www.mg.co.za/article/2005-11-07-can-you-trust-wikipedia.
138
If we want to have people, technology and data we can trust, they must be
connected and part of the same network.
Interesting developments in the collaborative sensemaking area are solu-
tions such as IBMs experiment with Many Eyes
12
where visitors were
invited to add opinions and ideas to datasets and visualizations. In a corpo-
rate world, this could be applied to sharing important information with all
people inside (and outside?) the company to try to make sense of the data,
predict possible new developments and come up with new ideas to respond
to the trends in the market.
Another interesting experiment online in the same space is Debategraph
13

that facilitates online debates by structuring the arguments of both sides.
One can imagine what this could have done for many fnancial institutions
had it been possible to use these kinds of tools earlier.
Figure 6.9: Customer Ratings
6.4
Collaborative Culture
There defnitely is a cultural aspect to collaboration. For one thing, the per-
ception people have of the possibilities for (and consequences of) collaborat-
ing will determine their actions. Or as one employee once said, Im trying
to develop an area of expertise that makes me stand out. If I shared that with
you, youd get the credit, not me. Its really a cut-throat environment.
12 http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/.
13 http://www.debategraph.org/.
139
The quote above was collected by Wanda J. Orlikowski in 1992 while doing
research into the adoption of Lotus Notes in an organization. After this
research, Orlikowski concluded:
in competitive and individualistic organizational cultures where there are few
incentives or norms for cooperating or sharing expertise groupware on its own is
unlikely to engender collaboration. Such products will be interpreted as counter-
cultural, and to the extent that they are used they will promote individual not group
aims.
14
Figure 6.10: Tug of War
15
The organization Orlikowski followed in 1992 was one where the CIO initi-
ated the implementation of Lotus Notes. Because this implementation was
technology-driven, employees who needed to work with the new tools were
not involved. Actually they simply arrived at work one new day and were
surprised to fnd new software installed on their desktops, not knowing what
to do with it. This is a scenario very similar to the disaster scenario men-
tioned above.
No More Taylor?
Previous innovations that aimed to improve productivity and performance
were often based on the ideas of Frederic Winslow Taylor. He stated,
14 http://ccs.mit.edu/papers/CCSWP134.html.
15 http://collaboration.mitre.org/prail/IC_Collaboration_Baseline_Study_Final_Report/3_0.htm.
140
It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best
implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work
can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and enforcing
this cooperation rests with management alone.
16
Figure 6.11: Taylorism in Action
Taylors scientifc management consisted of four principles:
Replace rule-of-thumb work methods with methods based on a scientifc
study of the tasks.
Scientifcally select, train, and develop each employee rather than pas-
sively leaving them to train themselves.
Provide Detailed instruction and supervision of each worker in the per-
formance of that workers discrete task (Montgomery 1997: 250).
Divide work nearly equally between managers and workers, so that the
managers apply scientifc management principles to planning the work
and the workers actually perform the tasks.
Taylor used examples from manufacturing to create a standard approach to
all sorts of work. Divide processes into smaller chunks, optimize each chunk,
and the result will be improved performance. Repeatability, quality control
and a fxed set of tasks and actions are elements of a Taylor work method. In
Chapter 3, we described how Taylor puts a lot of responsibility for innovation
and coordination with management, and takes these responsibilities away
from the ordinary worker with many counter-productive side effects.
16 Taylor, Principles of Scientifc Management, cited by Montgomery 1989:229.
141
Collaborative Leadership
In recent years, Taylor has lost some of his attraction. We have seen other
innovations that allowed more fexibility and gave workers more responsibil-
ity and room for initiative. In a collaborative environment, top-down man-
agement-driven decision making does not always produce the best results.
Yet old habits are hard to break. In the example of the research done by
Orlikowski in 1992, we saw that people started to use the new groupware
primarily for personal productivity, not for sharing and working together.
Businesses and people have a backpack of thirty years of Taylor like work
experience. Employees must start getting used to working together and shar-
ing information. Managers must facilitate cooperation, must learn about how
to encourage people to contribute in online forums, to generate trust, facili-
tate teamwork, etc The cultural and social structure of the organization
and its employees must breathe collaboration. The aim is that teams and
people should become self-organizing. Knowing that they are going to make
the decisions, they take responsibility, because they are not afraid of conse-
quences and because the culture of the organization stimulates creativity
and innovation.
Here we can take lessons from how people use internet and collaborative
services in their private lives. In that sphere people are already very famil-
iar with collaborative services. They share their online profles (Facebook,
MSN, MySpace), enjoy a low barrier in communicating with their network
(using Twitter, email, chat) and even share knowledge wherever possible
(Wikipedia, weblogs, FriendFeed, reviews and ratings). People will bring the
experiences and expectations from their private lives into the corporate
world. They expect the same kind of services to be available within the
organization. And they want these tools to be available whenever they need
them, without any restrictions. Does it make any sense to govern or limit
their use of the same tools within the organization? New services providing
collaborative functionality will require new insights into governance prin-
ciples and culture. To quote one IT manager,
Is it fair to govern 21st century tooling using 20th century principles? Would you put
restrictions on how long people talk to others they meet in the hallway? Would you
forbid people to talk about their vacation over coffee?
142
Collaborative Mindset, a New Look at Productivity
Culture is organic and is made by people. If collaborative culture takes root,
people will work and think differently; or, conversely, if people start to work
and think differently, collaborative culture will have taken root. In the intri-
cate interaction between culture, tools and (work) habits, the usability of the
tool, the work experience, plays an important role.
In a blog post by Leo Babauta on Zenhabits.net, he puts forward eight new
rules of work that show the shift from old-school productivity and Corpora-
tion-2.0 productivity.
17
These are of course general rules of thumb, but they
do give insight into the changes that are occurring:
1. Dont Crank Work with Deeper Focus
Old School: Crank it out. The old school of productivity taught us how to crank out
the tasks. Each task is a widget that needs to be cranked, and the more we crank out,
the better. Speed is important, and cranking out more tasks is the ultimate criteria.
How many tasks can you fnish in a day?
Productivity 2.0: Deep focus. The new worker isnt as obsessed with speed. He
allows himself to slow down and work at a more leisurely pace. He clears away dis-
tractions and allows himself to focus on the task at hand. He gets passionate about
important and exciting tasks and gets into Flow. This allows for a new kind of produc-
tivity one where quality matters, where amazing things are produced at an intense
rate, where there is a passion and satisfaction in completing a task.
2. Minimize Meetings and Planning Just Start
Old School: Lots of planning is important. Hold numerous planning meetings,
draw up specs or detailed timelines, make sure things are well planned out before
committing resources. This, however, meant that things took time. That was fne when
the world moved at a slower pace.
Productivity 2.0: Just start. Forget all the detailed planning. Meetings are a waste
of time, usually. Instead, fgure out the minimum requirements to launch, get those
done as quickly as possible, and launch in beta mode. Improve as you go along.
Things dont have to be perfect at launch. (...)
3. Paperwork Is Out Automate With Technology
Old school: Crank through tons of paperwork. The old productive worker had tons
of incoming papers, and lots of paperwork to fll out. And productivity methods
17 Zenhabits.com provides its content under open source license. We recommend you visit the site at www.
zenhabits.net.
143
taught him how to crank through that paperwork.
Productivity 2.0: Automate with technology. Many workers are learning to go
paperless. And because everything is becoming digital, you can use technology to
process it faster. (...) Many little tasks that used to be performed by humans can now
be automated through computers.
4. Dont Multi-Task Multi-Project and Single-Task
Old school: Multi-tasking is productive. Juggling tasks shows how productive you
are, says old school productivity.
Productivity 2.0: Multi-project and single-task. Its more about about single-task-
ing focusing on one task at a time to be more effective, but multi-projecting has its
uses too. Lets say youre working on Task 1 of Project A you should single-task while
working on Task 1. But when its done, you might need to wait for a response from
your boss before moving on to Task 2. In that case, while youre waiting, you can work
on Task 1 of Project B, single-tasking while doing that. When youre done with that,
you might need to hear back from a client before moving on to the next task of Project
B in which case you can either return to Project A if your boss responded, or move
on to Project C. Single-task while working on any one task, but working on different
projects to make your time more effcient can be a useful skill.
5. Produce Less, Not More
Old school: Produce more. Again, the idea was to crank out as much as possible.
Good managers tried to get as much productivity out of their workers as possible.
Good workers produced more.
Productivity 2.0: Produce less. More isnt necessarily better. The old thinking can
lead to a big pile of crap. Instead, focus on quality, on innovation, on creativity. Focus
on the important stuff. Lets take a software engineer as an example: one engineer
can write tons of code, knocking out one program after another. But a second engi-
neer can focus on a really innovative program, and though he has produced much
less code and fewer programs and has spent more time on a single program his
software can change the industry. It can win awards and recognition. It might even
be the companys main source of income if it catches on. Produce things that change
the world, with a long-lasting impact.
6. Forget About Organization Use Technology
Old School: Be organized. The productive worker of the past had drawers full of fles,
all organized thoroughly so that nothing would ever be lost. He had a Filofax full of
contacts and appointments. He organized his computer fles into folders and sub-
folders and sub-sub-folders and on and one. It took a lot of time, but it was worth it.
Productivity 2.0: Tag, archive and search. With technology, thats not necessary.
144
Tag a fle with a certain label, archive it, and fnd it later through its label or through
search. This approach saves a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of headaches. You
can spend your time on more important tasks.
7. Out With Hierarchies In With Freedom
Old School: Hierarchy. The old way of thinking is that hierarchies are more effcient.
After all, in a dictatorship, the trains run on time, no? Well, thats not always true.
Hierarchies require a lot of top-down decision-making, and a lot of up-and-down
communication. The bottom level is often left powerless to act until the top level
makes decisions, and the top level is often left without important information neces-
sary to make those decisions, because they arent down at the bottom in the trenches.
As a result, theres a lot of ineffciency.
Productivity 2.0: Independence, freedom, and collaboration. Hierarchies are
being fattened out. In fact, whole new forms of organization and collaboration are
being created all the time. People more and more are working independently, either
within a company or as freelancers and consultants. They take on jobs as they like,
and collaborate with others at will. Workers are empowered to make decisions, com-
munication is more effcient, and people with freedom are generally happier with
their jobs and more passionate about the work they produce.
8. Work Fewer Hours, Not More
Old School: Work longer hours. Work long and hard! Be a top producer! Burn out
by age 40! Working long hours earned you points with your boss, and there was a
competition to see who worked the most and the hardest.
Productivity 2.0: Work fewer hours. With more freedom, workers are realizing that
work isnt everything, and that its more important to be happy, to produce important
work, to have the freedom to be creative and innovative, to be passionate about your
work than to give everything you have for something you dont care about. As a
result, more people are working from home. More people have fexible working hours,
working early and leaving early or coming in late and leaving late. More people take
naps in the afternoon, when their productivity normally fags, and wake up refreshed
and ready for a productive round 2. More people are setting limits to their working
hours, and realizing that with those limits they actually make better use of the fewer
hours they work.
Culture Is of the People
Culture is ultimately determined by the people, and any company will most
likely have different kinds of people working together. We have mentioned
145
the digital natives before. They are a special group when it comes to col-
laboration and using technology. But of the others, the digital immigrants so
to speak, some will also be able and willing to join new initiatives. Forrester
Research uses a ladder analogy to show how people can develop in several
steps from inactive to fully fedged creators (see Figure 6.12). When initiat-
ing collaboration within an organization, companies often rely upon the peo-
ple who are already higher up the social technographics ladder in order to
create successful pilot projects that will attract and inspire people who are
newer to the technologies. If we look at the statistics, the different genera-
tions show their true colors: of the younger generation (people between 18
and 21 years old), about 37% is a creator and only 17% is a complete inac-
tive. Compare this to the people in their ffties, where only 15% is a creator
and a shocking 61% is inactive! Note that the ladder is merely an illustration
of the different levels and suggests a natural progression. It does not imply
that everybody will move up the ladder or even that all steps in between have
to be taken in order to reach higher levels.
Publish a blog
Publish your own Web pages
Upload video you created
Upload audio/music you created
Write articles/stories and post them
t
t
t
t
t
Post ratings/reviews of products/services
Comment on someone elses blog
Contribute to online forums
Contribute to/edit articles in a wiki
t
t
t
t
Use RSS feeds
Vote for web sites online
Add tags to web pages of photos
t
t
t
Maintain prole on a social networking site
Visit social networking sites
t
t
Read blogs
Listen to podcasts
Watch videos from other users
Read online forums
Read customer ratings/reviews
t
t
t
t
t
None of the above
t
Creators
Percentage of respondents (2008, Forrester Research)
0 20
Critics
Collectors
Joiners
Spectators
Inactives
40 60
21
37
19
35
69
25
Figure 6.12: Social Technographics Ladder
146
Another way of involving all kinds of people is not to bring the people to the
technology but to bring the technology to the people. A great example of this
is in research conducted in 1998 by the University of California in Los Ange-
les. Julian Orr, an anthropologist, did research for a photocopier company to
fnd the best way to use technology to support their repair technicians. Orr
took a broad view of the technicians lives, learning some of their skills and
following them around. Each morning the technicians would come to work,
pick up their company vehicles, and drive to customers premises where
photocopiers needed fxing; each evening they would return to the company,
go to a bar together, and drink beer. Although the company had provided the
technicians with formal training, Orr discovered that they actually acquired
much of their expertise informally while drinking beer together. Having
spent the day contending with diffcult repair problems, they would entertain
one another with war stories, and these stories often helped them with
future repairs. He suggested, therefore, that the technicians be given radio
equipment so that they could remain in contact all day, telling stories and
helping each other with their repair tasks.
The example also shows the importance of the social structure for collabora-
tion. We are more likely to share information with people we know and
like.
6.5
Goals and Rewards
Collaboration is working together towards a shared goal. Or is it? It helps if
the goal of the collaboration is clear and known to the parties who are taking
part in the collaboration, but peoples individual goals may vary. So before
we can look at improving collaboration, we need to examine how we set
goals, and what is closely related how we motivate people.
Collaboration, like most activities, will only occur when people know they
will get something in return. They wont do it for nothing, but they might do
it for free! (That is, by accepting rewards other than money or goods). People
collaborate in many different ways. We already have hundreds, even thou-
sands of years of experience in collaboration and communication. From the
frst forays into communication while hunting mammoths to the social net-
works on the internet nowadays, we have known that if we did not work
together towards the shared goal of killing that mammoth the whole group
147
would starve and some team members would probably be fattened in the
process.
Goals are mostly top-down. While solutions, innovations and ways to achieve
the goals are best left to teams to discover, the goals are usually externally
assigned. Allowing teams to set their own goals tends to lead to long debates
and soul searching without any progress. The assigned goal may of course
not be too detailed: The goal is to write this one paragraph for this newslet-
ter is easily translated into a work order. On the other hand, The goal is to
involve people and communicate our progress, leaves more open to the team
collaborating and will lead to better and more creative results. The goals are
part of the vision.
The Vision Ignites the Fire and the Rewards Keep the Fire Burning
The most crucial element underpinning the vitality of effective collaboration
is a shared vision. This might be a vision of a specifc collaboration (We will
build the product set of the future) or it might be a vision of how the com-
pany wants to work generally (We will be the most engaging and inspiring
workplace.) Once this vision is determined and communicated throughout
the organization (including internal staff and external stakeholders, clients,
etc.), it becomes the reference point for future action. As such, the critical
focus of the leaders attention is on developing and crafting the collaboration
vision. More than just a sentence on a document, the vision should be brought
to life and embedded in the activities, reward mechanisms and key perform-
ance indicators of the entire organization. The reward mechanism demands
some extra attention, since money and bonuses will most probably not be the
most effective motivators.
People will not share anything unless they stand to beneft from the experi-
ence. Employees must know how and why their opinions and contributions
to the collaborative system will make a difference. They should be encour-
aged and rewarded. Management guru Peter Drucker inspired the adage,
Knowledge is never conscripted but only volunteered.
18
The adage is still very relevant today and is not taken to heart often enough.
Get this right and you will go much further towards a successful collabora-
18 Inspired by Peter Drucker.
148
tion platform/initiative, regardless of what tools you use (portals, mashups,
team sites, instant messaging, web conferencing, blogs, wikis).
Rewarding people with (bonus) money or other gifts is ingrained in many
organizations, but research shows that by rewarding someone we take away
the inherent pleasure of the task itself.
19
The reasoning behind this is that
people unconsciously think, if I must be rewarded to do this, it apparently
is an unpleasant task that needs rewarding to get me to perform it. So giving
people money to write blogposts or contribute to the corporate wiki might
backfre, turning a fun thing into another work task.
Morality,
Creativity,
Spontaneity,
Problem solving,
Lack of prejudice,
Acceptance of facts
Self-esteem, Condence,
Achievement, Respect of others,
Respect by others
Friendship, Family,
Sexual intimacy
Security of:
body, employment, resources, morality, family, health, property
Breathing, Food, Water, Sex, Sleep,
Homeostasis, Excretion
Self-actualization
Esteem
Love/belonging
Safety
Physiological
Figure 6.13: Maslows hierarchy of needs is often depicted as a pyramid consisting
of fve levels: the frst (lower) level is associated with physiological needs, while the
top levels are termed growth needs and are associated with psychological needs.
Defciency needs must be met frst. Once these are met, seeking to satisfy growth
needs drives personal development. The higher needs in this hierarchy only come into
focus when the lower needs in the pyramid have been satisfed
20
19 http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html.
20 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_needs.
149
When looking for ways to motivate people, we might reexamine the classic
Maslow pyramid. According to Abraham Maslows Hierarchy of Needs things
such as love, belonging (to a group), respect for others and by others are
needs that must be satisfed before creativity and problem-solving are per-
ceived as valuable. If people dont experience respect and confdence, their
frst drive will be to fnd this respect and confdence, before they will start
looking for creativity and spontaneity as inherently fulflling activities.
Shared Model of the Truth
We need trust, culture and the right way of thinking and motivating people,
and then we can get to work. Before people can start to work effectively
together, they also need a shared model of what is true. People must have
access to the same information and must have a way to verify the informa-
tion. For example if one party is operating under the belief that shipping
costs are low and another is operating under the belief that shipping costs
are high, it will be very hard to come to a joint solution for optimizing ship-
ping and stocking.
Creating a shared model of the truth means giving people access to informa-
tion. When working across corporate boundaries, with partners or with cli-
ents, this means these other parties must get access to the same information!
And if we are creating autonomous units where people are free to respond
to changing circumstances, they might need access to different kinds of
information than what they needed access to before. If we want to allow
people to create mashups (a combination of services to meet a specifc need),
we will get many different solutions using a lot more obscure sources of
information. For true autonomy and spontaneous collaboration, expect to
open up the corporate data stores. This in turn means detailed access control
and auditing.
(Freedom) Rules?
So far, we have seen that an open culture, where bottom-up initiatives are
valued and people are free to build social networks in the workplace, gives
the best results for collaboration. At the same time, we also have corporate
responsibilities that need us to limit our liabilities and guide our invest-
ments. How do we set the rules?
150
Rules of the Game
One of the aspects of a collaborative culture is that people use norms, cul-
tural values, to guide their behavior. Just like we would not tolerate people
yelling in the hallways, we do not tolerate people misusing the corporate
collaborative tools. When we are collaborating across organizational or even
national boundaries, examining the rules of the collaboration game is extra
important. Implicit expectations about how to behave can lead to troubles in
the communication and collaboration. Have you ever worked with someone
from a different geography and culture? How do they respond to jokes? What
is their view of deadlines and quality? Just as any traditional project needs
to examine the rules of engagement, a collaborative initiative (which can be
part of a larger project) also needs to defne the ground rules.
And then there are the corporate rules, aimed at limiting liability while try-
ing to allow the good things to happen.
Prevention and Freedom
How do you prevent your valuable information from being lost or misused?
How can you capture new ideas and stimulate innovation? Do traditional
IT rules and guidelines, which are already in place, take into account the
multitude of aspects related to knowledge-based and information-sharing
technology?
Innovation demands the creation of new ideas. Collaboration supports idea
creation. Implementing new ideas requires fexibility. But when you take a
look at internet guidelines, currently in use by many companies, they are
old-fashioned and dont stimulate innovation and collaboration. It looks like
there is some kind of fear around blogging, instant messaging, social net-
works and all kinds of other 2.0 technologies, just as in the early ages of the
internet and the rise of email.
These rules and guidelines are made with risks in mind. Risks may include
safety, legal issues, ethical concerns, costs, or system overload, and certainly
productivity is an important impetus behind some rules. Why dont these
rules always produce the best result? They are made with the aim to control.
Control is good for the old-fashioned manager, the Taylor-style manager, but
isnt necessarily good for an innovative environment where it would be bet-
ter to have collaborative leadership in place. Workers need to communicate
with customers and other kinds of interest groups in order to share knowl-
edge about the product or service. They need to be inspired while browsing
151
the internet, watching videos, reading blogs and having direct contact using
instant messages and micro blogs.
For example, most organizations have blocked access-streaming media as
one of the internet guidelines. But why arent employees allowed to use
streaming media? Probably organizations are worried about system over-
loads, or perhaps they are worried that an employee might watch the Tour
de France during business hours and be unproductive for the duration. But
these days, video is widely used in communication and collaboration plat-
forms to exchange ideas, pilots and even user guides. On YouTube there are
many videos delivering new ideas as well as user guides. Microsoft used
streaming audio to broadcast an important keynote address from Ray Ozzie
during the Professional Developer conference (where he launched the new
Windows Cloud Platform Azure), so employees didnt have to travel to a
large event but could still get the information frst hand.
Every company will have to fnd its own balance and ways to enforce the
parts that need to be enforced. Determine which data people can share
across units and which data is very sensitive. What can be published and
what needs to stay very secure? What data should never end up on a memory
stick in a rental car? The theme we are running into here is of course an
element of IT governance: information security. A valuable approach with
regard to collaboration is to attach to every information asset some metadata
that describes for example the confdentiality, need for integrity and avail-
ability of the asset. Combined with a structure of roles and access rights,
collaborative systems can then determine if people can have access to certain
information and how it can be shared. Given the ease with which informa-
tion can be shared, it pays to draw a plan before launching any initiatives to
address the most basic security questions.
Figure 6.14: Live Webcast of Launch of Azure
21
21 http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/KYN01/.
152
Example: Blogging Rules
The fear of sharing too much information is very prominent with blogging.
Another worry could be whether employees will spend a lot of time writing
blogs, reading other blogs, or searching for new blogs. How do you know if
the blogging is work related or personal? Many companies have trouble
trying to regulate this kind of new information-gathering and collaboration.
Most of them fnd that there has to be some kind of guidance.
A crude but simple code of conduct is the not allowed to blog rule adopted
by some companies. There are many reasons to allow blogging and there is
only one reason why you would want to prevent it, and that is the fear of los-
ing control: you are not in control of what employees are saying about the
company. As Technorati founder and CEO David Sifry says:
Its scary. The lesson everyone learns in Marketing 101 is, Control the message.
Blogging turns that on its head, and thats very frightening.
But the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, as this article on Web-
ProNews, a portal about how to build a better online presence, says:
Banning work related blogging activity, by members of the organization, actually
hurts the business. By failing to take advantage of the blog benefts, including trans-
parency, conversation and community building, and relationship development, a
company blogging ban does more harm than good.
22
Instead of forbidding blogging, its better to defne some important blogging
rules. Many companies already have an online presence in the blogosphere.
The guidelines from these companies, most of which are publicly available,
are an interesting starting point for establishing rules to guide the online
presence of employees. For example, the blogging guidelines from Yahoo!
23

can be found online and might be a basis for your companys set of rules.
Most of the blogging guidelines include the rule that the writer is personally
responsible for his writing, and most of them want the blogger to use a dis-
claimer. IBM says,
Blogs, wikis and other forms of online discourse are individual interactions, not cor-
porate communications. IBMers are personally responsible for their posts.
22 http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2005/03/24/corporate-blogging-guidelines.
23 http://jeremy.zawodny.com/yahoo/yahoo-blog-guidelines.pdf.
153
Actually this rule is a little bit strange because they are corporate blogs. But
this disclaimer also gives the employee freedom to post anything he wants
to, even about the company or the products they make.
Beside the common rule about responsibility most guidelines also include
more obvious rules such as keep secrets and be respectful. Yahoo! has
also included a rule that ties the new world of blogging to the old world of
marketing:
If a member of the media contacts you about a Yahoo!-related blog posting or
requests Yahoo! information of any kind, contact PR.
Blogging is just a small part of the whole collaboration spectrum, but talking
in terms of rules, freedom, publicity, innovation and added value, establishing
blogging rules is a good starting point for adopting Web 2.0 technologies.
When you are considering the rules for blogging, dont let them stand in the
way of success. It takes some freedom to have a successful corporate blog.
Robert Scoble, the previously mentioned author of Naked Conversations, is
also a well-known blogger and former Microsoft employee who introduced
more open communication within Microsoft with the start of Channel 9. In
2003 he proposed a weblog manifesto for companies. In the manifesto he
shared his ideas on how to make a corporate weblog successful. How many
of these things could your employees currently do? Does that mean they can
or cannot write a blog about your company?
The Corporate Weblog Manifesto
24
Thinking of doing a weblog about your product or your company? Here are my ideas
of things to consider before you start.
1. Tell the truth. The whole truth. Nothing but the truth. If your competitor has a
product thats better than yours, link to it. You might as well. Well fnd it anyway.
2. Post fast on good news or bad. Someone say something bad about your prod-
uct? Link to it before the second or third site does and answer its claims as
best you can. Same if something good comes out about you. Its all about building
long-term trust. The trick to building trust is to show up! If people are saying things
about your product and you dont answer them, that distrust builds. Plus, if people
are saying good things about your product, why not help Google fnd those pages
as well?
24 The complete story can be found at http://scoble.weblogs.com/2003/02/26.html.
154
3. Use a human voice. Dont get corporate lawyers and PR professionals to cleanse
your speech. We can tell, believe me. Plus, youll be too slow. If youre the last one
to post, the joke is on you!
4. Have a thick skin. Even if you have Bill Gates favorite product people will say
bad things about it. Thats part of the process. Dont try to write a corporate
weblog unless you can answer all questions good and bad professionally,
quickly, and nicely.
5. Dont ignore Slashdot.
6. Talk to the grassroots frst. Why? Because the main-stream press is cruising
weblogs looking for stories and looking for people to use in quotes. If a main-
stream reporter cant fnd anyone who knows anything about a story, he/she will
write a story that looks like a press release instead of something trustworthy.
People trust stories that have quotes from many sources. They dont trust press
releases.
7. If you dont have the answers, say so. Not having the answers is human. But,
get them and exceed expectations. If you say youll know by tomorrow afternoon,
make sure you know in the morning.
8. Never lie. Youll get caught and youll lose credibility that youll never get back.
9. Never hide information. Just like the space shuttle engineers, your information
will get out and then youll lose credibility.
10. If you have information that might get you in a lawsuit, see a lawyer before
posting, but do it fast. Speed is key here. If it takes you two weeks to answer
whats going on in the marketplace because youre scared of what your legal hit
will be, then youre screwed anyway. Your competitors will fgure it out and out-
maneuver you.
11. Link to your competitors and say nice things about them. Remember, youre
part of an industry and if the entire industry gets bigger, youll probably win more
than your fair share of business and youll get bigger too. Be better than your
competitors people remember that.
12. Be the authority on your product/company. You should know more about your
product than anyone else alive, if youre writing a weblog about it. If theres some-
one alive who knows more, you damn well better have links to them (and you
should send some goodies to them to thank them for being such great advo-
cates).
155
6.6
Conclusion
While there is no golden recipe to ignite collaboration, we can say that you
can make it harder or easier on yourself. To set the stage and create the right
environment where the spark of a great inspirational vision and goal may set
off productive collaboration, at least you need to address the things dis-
cussed:
Create a structure that enables trust;
Create the environment where a social network can live, or become part
of existing networks;
Share the vision, the goals;
Motivate people in the right way and give them the freedom to deliver;
and
Talk about the rules that guide collaborative behavior.
After that, it could still be a challenge to make people from four different time
zones, cultures and organizations work together, but if at least they can trust
each other, know what the rules are and of course if they can trust the tech-
nology to support them in any way they see ft, there will be people who will
take to this new way of collaborating. And once one group is on board, others
will follow, by either joining existing initiatives or by creating their own.
157
Case Publishing Company
Case: Its Taken a Circuitous Route, but Publishing Company on Verge of
Collaboration Breakthrough
Scattershot Attempts Prevent Company from Knowing What It Knows
To say that the road to a collaborative business environment has been a bumpy one
for this business information supplier would be a gross understatement. But after
several years of inefective eforts to infuse the company with technology-enabled
collaboration, the $9 billion-a-year publisher of journals for the medical, legal and
business sectors believes its about to get it right.
The companys frst attempt came with the deployment of Microsofts Share-
Point 2003 collaboration tool. But with an insufcient infrastructure to support it, it
choked the network, rendering it more a source of frustration than anything. Com-
plaints rained down on IT until, in 2006, the company upgraded to Microsoft Ofce
SharePoint Server 2007, cobbled together an improved infrastructure, and watched
the tool start to take of, growing to 10,000 SharePoint sites. But performance began
to sufer as familiar problems surfaced. Again, the environment grew increasingly
constrained by the infrastructure, it wasnt assigned to the right hardware, and
because there was no strategic communication about it, people had to discover it
themselves.
Without an efective collaboration environment, the information-intensive company
that had grown primarily by acquisition was plagued by islands of information that
made it difcult if not impossible to efectively reuse its vast pool of intellectual
property. It was a case of You dont know what you know, says the senior director
of enterprise architecture. Were an information company, and we had all this infor-
mation out there, but we couldnt make the connections.
Ramped-Up Commitment Expected to Yield More Cohesion
Thats when the company made the decision to take the efort up a notch. It started
by building a standard Active Directory structure to ensure all of its 32,000 employ-
ees were in the same environment. Then it earmarked budget to clean up its Share-
Point environment, turning to Sogeti for help in designing an infrastructure that could
support SharePoint for years to come. An interim architecture built with Sogetis
assistance is enabling SharePoint to run more efectively until the more permanent
infrastructure is completed, most likely in early 2009.
Concurrently, the company has begun a two-year efort to condense its scattered
portfolio of disparate applications into a smaller number of instances, all to be acces-
sible via a SharePoint intranet portal. That, combined with the decision to standard-
ize globally on SharePoint, will enable the company to collaborate more efectively
by functioning as a cohesive unit.
158
Persistent Connections Yielding Early Results
Even now, the interim infrastructure has brought a stability that is helping the com-
pany see SharePoints true potential. Global teams are assembling to collaborate,
and then disassembling very quickly, without any need for IT involvement. Project
teams are moving faster, delivering products on more aggressive timelines. And
general areas of concentration are emerging.
One of these concentration areas centers on knowledge discovery, with people using
SharePoint sites to exchange expertise. Then theres a category of sites where project
teams focused on specifc processes or outputs can collaborate globally by front-end-
ing their work in one location where colleagues can easily get at it. The company also
has created a process for calling out the militia, as the director of enterprise archi-
tecture puts it, enabling teams to quickly, and collaboratively, tackle isolated situations
such as IT security incidents, new business opportunities, or acquisitions. Were foster-
ing discovery, which is what Im really after, he says. Were creating persistent con-
nections between business units and experts who can help each other.
And to make sure the company doesnt lose control of the environment again, theres
increased attention being paid to governance. In addition to previously established
guidelines about expiring sites after a period of inactivity, the company also is work-
ing on security, ensuring that employees are clear about whats appropriate to share
with a wide audience, and that anyone who sets up a SharePoint site can easily
assign permissions.
Eventually, the company will extend its SharePoint 2007 environment to update its
extranet, which currently runs on Microsoft Content Management Server, and the
company also is looking at bringing Microsofts Groove real-time collaboration tool
into the mix.
159
7
Mixing Software + Services
7.1
Introduction
There are fundamental changes that continuously occur within our industry related to
the price of different types of components and the cost of communication. About every
fve years or so, weve found the need to re-evaluate the right architectures for systems
based on changes that are occurring. Today, the confuence of cheap computing,
cheap storage, and cheap communications is again causing us to re-evaluate where
we put computing in order to deliver solutions and solve problems.
Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect, Microsoft
1
As we saw in Chapter 2, we are on the top of another Kondratiev wave of
fundamental change. We are entering a time of rapid change for business.
In previous chapters we have talked about collaboration and the organiza-
tional side of this change. In this chapter we will focus on the delivery archi-
tecture for the services and tools that enable cross-boundary collaboration.
The developments in technology around SOA, Web 2.0 and SaaS, combined
with the rise of the conversation society, offer us new possibilities and new
fexibility to deliver solutions that specifcally ft any user, any situation, any
location, any device etc. The rapid changes in society also impact IT itself.
In the IT industry, that will cause considerable disruption and change for
the IT and enterprise vendors, and for the way that people perceive and use
technologies. This disruption is similar to the earlier PC and internet revolu-
tions in terms of scope and effect. It touches millions of people, generating
diverse models of commerce and of IT consumption, as well as diverse ways
of generating revenue and value. It has already spawned new marketplaces,
industries, and multibillion-dollar companies, and it has had a dramatic
effect on multiple aspects of business.
The driving forces behind this radical disruption are the same ones that have
driven the previous disruptions we have seen in the IT space: creativity,
communication, and commerce. People want to be creative and unique, and
1 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa905319.aspx.
160
they want to innovate and to build, to make new things and generate new
ideas. Additionally, people want to communicate and share with one another
both locally and globally. This desire to share and the value that can be cre-
ated by collaboration is tearing down organizational barriers. It is blurring
the distinctions between consumers, suppliers, and business. It is making
all enterprises more transparent. Finally, businesses want to expand and
create new products, services, marketplaces, and revenue.
1990
Time
T
r
a
n
s
f
o
r
m
a
t
i
o
n
1995
PC
Web
Web Services
Cloud
2000 Today
Figure 7.1 Technology at the Base of Disruption
The main force driving this disruption, as in the previous ones, is technol-
ogy. The falling cost of bandwidth, the availability of computing in new and
diverse (and cheaper) forms and devices, the emergence of cloud services
and platforms, and the increase in productivity and ease of use has caused
a massive uptake of web-based applications. This disruption is in its early
days and the full ramifcations of what will happen have not yet emerged,
but the opportunities are all around us, so those people and organizations
that recognize them early will beneft most.
In the next three sections we will examine key catalysts that are collectively
driving and creating the emerging Software + Services model. We will then
outline the key principles underlying the Software + Services model. We will
conclude by discussing some of the implications of the Software + Services
model on IT at large.
161
7 Mixing Software + Services
7.2
The Evolution of Service-Oriented Architectures
Service orientation has changed our view of IT and architecture dramati-
cally. It is an architectural style that can be used to guide the design of dis-
tributed systems. At its most abstract level, service orientation views every
business capability, and every IT asset from the mainframe application to
the printer, to the shipping-dock clerk, to the overnight delivery company
as a service provider. SOA looks to create an architecture for the organiza-
tion as a collection of business services that mirror organizational capabili-
ties. These business services in turn are composed of many layers of more
technical services.
Some of the standards that are used to implement SOA are also used without
the overarching architecture for simple integration purposes, making it
easy to connect to mainframes or other technical entities. Service providers
expose capabilities through interfaces, and service-oriented architecture
maps these capabilities and interfaces so they can be orchestrated into proc-
esses. The service model is fractal: the newly formed process is a service
itself, exposing a new, aggregated capability.
At a macro level, from an architecture perspective, SOA may be thought of
as being about the space between the systems or services. The core tenets of
SOA are focused on the harmonization of these systems or services, and one
can view service federation and service composition as the primary capa-
bilities of service-oriented applications.
SOA represents the collection of a lot of prior knowledge about IT combined
into one coherent architectural style. SOA provides us with a model that
allows us to improve IT maturity and guides us in the way we can design,
develop, build and manage applications. The concept of application is no
longer viable, since we are looking at services as independent reusable enti-
ties. These services can then be combined into processes that may be very
dynamic and/or personal. SOA has fundamentally changed the way that we
think about, design, develop, build and manage applications.
Gone is the model where the application was a static entity today the appli-
cation is usually a dynamic, on-demand composition of services directed by
the end user. This has paved the way for IT to conceive of itself as a collection
or portfolio of services. Predominantly these services are in-house but the
genie is out of the bottle and this shift in mindset and in execution is paving
162
the way for IT to investigate and pursue services that may be outside of the
organization.
Organizations that gain experience with SOA discover that the boundaries
between internal and external services are consequently blurring: both are
very similar in their provisioning and use. Because those organizations have
their internal IT in order, they are almost automatically ready to connect to
the cloud.
The Evolution of the Web
There was a time when the web was about delivery of information to the end
user. This design pattern traces its heritage to the hypermedia information
systems that led to the invention of HTTP the protocol used to transfer text
and webpages across the internet. However, this pattern was quickly super-
seded by the use of the web to enable transactional, commercial scenarios
where the end user was able to transact with a provider. Prominent exam-
ples of the Business-2-Consumer (B2C) pattern are sites such as Amazon.
com and eBay.com, among others.
In the last decade, these web applications have undergone some tectonic
shifts. Gone are the days of the web application as a means of information
delivery or even transactional commerce. Todays web applications have
become hubs for people and for communities to create and share, and to do
so collaboratively. Websites and applications have become bazaars where
users can come together to share rich content, to engage with one other, and
to discuss and create entirely new content in ways that were unimaginable
in the early days of the web.
Rise of the Conversation Society
In the book Me the Media: Rise of the Conversation Society the impact of disrup-
tive technologies is seen through the lens of the media. Media play a central
role in our lives, an observation that is also literally what the word means.
Traditionally, a medium is found in the space between sender and receiver.
Since there are various ways of communicating (or mediating) across this space
(one-to-many, one-to-one, many-to-many, visual, auditory, textual and via
associated devices), it is possible to distinguish different types of media.
163
What the internet has done is to gather the pre-existing media radio, TV,
newspapers, magazines, telephone, etc. into a single multimedia environ-
ment that is personal and social at the same time. This trend is greatly trou-
blesome to traditional mass media and the organizations that tend to support
communications in such mass-media forms. In the digital Middle Ages,
every medium had its own distinct footprint, but these distinguishing fea-
tures have now become fully interwoven in the multimedia internet, forming
what has now become a single undifferentiated media mass.
Due to the emergence of this personal and social multimedia internet, expe-
riences of the brand and identity have gained enormously in importance.
Phrases such as service at your fngertips and the customer is always
right can now be given new meaning. The frst examples of this new devel-
opment are discernible in the ways that (some) companies engage critical
bloggers to help them maintain a competitive edge, while others are involv-
ing online customers in innovation and marketing. A similar observation
about consumer empowerment was made by the Business 2.0 magazine
American Innovation and later by Time magazine when they placed You at
the top newsmaker spot at the middle and end of 2006.
We shall now briefy consider each of the three great media revolutions in
our history, the most epoch-making media events that have occurred since
the development of writing 5,000 years ago.
The First Media Revolution: Type Letters and Printing Press
The newspaper was the fnal development of the personal media revolution.
This revolution resulted from the introduction of type letters and the print-
ing press in Europe and subsequently around the world. Modern printing
makes it possible for everyone to be kept informed about the latest develop-
ments. In the Wild West, posters clearly advertised the reward for a captured
outlaw, for example.
The Second Media Revolution: Electronic Mass Media
In addition to the explosion of newspapers and magazines, radio and televi-
sion are the major innovations of the mass media age. This second media
revolution exposed us to multimedia broadcasts over the airwaves. The
resulting forms of communication and socialization combined with print
media in a fruitful cross-fertilization.
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The Third Media Revolution: Web Media
The internet, the PC, and mobile telephones with cameras are characteristic
of the present phase of the third media revolution. We are currently living
through the transition from the traditional mass media to a single massive
(multi)medium in which everyone can personally participate as a prosumer.
For we are now all able to both consume and produce texts, images and
audio, using such devices as our mobile telephones, which have developed
along with the PC into the most prominent forms of internet hardware. This
third media revolution means even more communication and socialization,
since individuals can become personally involved whenever they like. They
can also organize themselves into non-traditional associations such as the
Best Buy customer, the housewife, the New York Times subscriber, the
jazz lover, or the liberal.
Figure 7.2: Cover of Me the Media: Rise of the Conversation Society
The Emergence of Cloud Computing and Software as a Service (SaaS)
The viability of the internet as an extended platform, facilitated by cloud
services and managed offerings, is driving interest in sourcing services from
the market (aka the cloud) and Software as a Service, as opposed to buy-
ing/building applications and managing them on-premises.
165
Wikipedia
2
defnes SaaS:
Software as a Service (SaaS, typically pronounced sass) is a model of software
deployment where an application is hosted as a service provided to customers across
the Internet. By eliminating the need to install and run the application on the cus-
tomers own computer, SaaS alleviates the customers burden of software mainte-
nance, ongoing operation, and support. Conversely, customers relinquish control
over software versions or changing requirements; moreover, costs to use the service
become a continuous expense, rather than a single expense at time of purchase.
From an enterprise perspective, SaaS and cloud-based services open a pleth-
ora of possibilities. From the MSDN view
3
, some of the benefts of SaaS and
cloud-based services are as follows:
Managing the Risks of Software Acquisition
Traditionally, deploying large-scale business-critical software systems, such
as ERP and CRM application suites, has been a major undertaking. Deploy-
ing these systems across a large enterprise could cost hundreds of thousands
of dollars in upfront licensing fees, and usually requires an army of IT per-
sonnel and consultants to customize and integrate it with the organizations
other systems and data. The time, staff, and budget requirements of a deploy-
ment of this magnitude represent a signifcant risk for an organization of any
size, and often puts such software out of the reach of smaller organizations
that would otherwise be able to derive a great deal of utility from it.
The on-demand delivery model changes some of this. SaaS applications dont
require the deployment of a large infrastructure at the clients location,
which eliminates or drastically reduces the upfront commitment of resources.
With no signifcant initial investment to amortize, an enterprise that deploys
a SaaS application that turns out to produce disappointing results can walk
away and pursue a different direction, without having to abandon an expen-
sive on-premises infrastructure.
Additionally, if custom integration is not required, SaaS applications can be
planned and executed with minimal effort and roll-out activities, creating
one of the shortest time-to-value intervals possible for a major IT invest-
ment. This has also made it possible for a number of SaaS vendors to offer
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_as_a_service.
3 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa905332.aspx.
166
risk-free (and often literally free) test drives of their software for a limited
period, such as 30 days. Giving prospective customers a chance to try the
software before they buy it helps eliminate much of the risk surrounding
software purchase.
Managing IT Focus
With SaaS, the job of deploying an application and keeping it running from
day to day testing and installing patches, managing upgrades, monitoring
performance, ensuring high availability, and so forth is handled by the
provider. By transferring the responsibility for these overhead activities to
a third party, the IT department can focus more on high-value activities that
align with and support the business goals of the enterprise. Instead of being
primarily reactive and operations-focused, the chief information offcer
(CIO) and IT staff can more effectively function as technology strategists to
the rest of the company, working with business units to understand their
business needs and advise them on how best to use technology to accomplish
their objectives. Far from being made obsolete by SaaS, the IT department
has an opportunity to contribute to the success of the enterprise more directly
than ever before.
Windows Azure and Cloud
In October 2008, on their Developer Conference PDC, Microsoft announced its cloud
computing initiative: Windows Azure. According to CTO Ray Ozzie from Microsoft,
Windows Azure is a services platform that has been designed for massive scale-out
scalability that is running on large, redundant collections of cheap standard
servers.
Figure 7.3: Azure Services Platform
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On top of Azure, multiple services are hosted. Currently, fve services are available:
Live Services, SQL Services, .NET Services, SharePoint Services and Dynamics
CRM Service.
Windows Azure will provide a Windows server in the cloud, giving developers the abil-
ity to run their applications from the cloud instead of from on-premises hardware. The
services on top of Azure either provide the building blocks for creating custom applica-
tions or are confgurable, ready-made applications such as SharePoint or Ofce.
One Cloud or Two?
The term the cloud has become very popular these days. Everybody is busy
developing or embracing their own variation(s) of the cloud. As we saw in
Chapter 1, this leads to a lot of confusion and many different defnitions.
Analysts from Forrester Research described their vision of cloud in great
detail. They see roughly two dimensions of cloud. One is the cloud as a
software thing: all sorts of applications and services on the web that provide
users with unique ways to interact and collaborate. These are the services
such as YouTube, Flickr, Salesforce and the like.
The other dimension they see is the cloud from a infrastructural side: the
massively scalable, on demand infrastructure that is being offered by Ama-
zon, Google and now Microsoft. Companies will likely choose to use cloud
computing for one or both of the dimensions: either needing services or
needing a massively scalable infrastructure that can be turned on and off on
demand.
Two existing end user services markets,
delivered from the cloud
Three emerging cloud infrastructure
as a Service markets
Traditional data center services market,
such as collocation or managed hosting
Web-based
services
Application components as a Service
Software platform as a Service
Virtual infrastructure as a Service
Physical infrastructure as a Service
Software
as a Service
4PVSDF'PSSFTUFS3FTFBSDI
Figure 7.4: Three Cloud Infrastructure as a Service Markets Are Just Emerging
168
7.3
The Software + Services Model
4
There are three overarching principles that guide this model principles
informing the design and development of technological capabilities, for both
individuals and business.
The Web is the Hub of Our Social Mesh and Our Device Mesh
The web is frst and foremost a mesh of people. Elements of this social mesh
will be a primary attribute of most all software and service experiences, as the
personal of the PC meets the inter-personal of the web. Whether in work,
play, or just life, the social element of software will continue to transform the
ways that we interact with people. All applications will grow to recognize and
utilize the inherent group-forming aspects of their connection to the web, in
ways that will become fundamental to our experiences. In scenarios ranging
from productivity to media and entertainment, social mesh notions of linking,
sharing, ranking and tagging will become as familiar as File, Edit and View.
Were also living in a world where the number and diversity of devices is on
the rise; not just PCs and phones, but TVs, game consoles, digital picture
frames, DVRs, media players, cameras and camcorders, home servers, home
automation systems, vehicle entertainment and navigation systems, and
more. To individuals, the concept of My Computer will give way to the
concept of a personal mesh of devices a means by which all of your devices
are brought together and managed through the web, as a seamless whole.
After identifying a device as being yours, its confguration and personali-
zation settings, its applications and their own settings, as well as the data it
carries will be seamlessly available and synchronized across your mesh of
devices. Whether for media, control or access, scenarios ranging from pro-
ductivity to media and entertainment will be unifed and enhanced by the
concept of a device mesh.
The Power of Choice as Business Moves to Embrace the Cloud
Most major enterprises are in the early stages of a signifcant infrastructural
transition from the use of dedicated and sometimes very expensive applica-
4 Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Services Strategy Update April 2008.
169
tion servers, to the use of virtualization and commodity hardware to con-
solidate those enterprise applications on computing and storage grids con-
structed within their data center. This trend will accelerate as enterprise
applications are progressively re-factored from a centralized scale up model
to the horizontal scale out requirements of this new utility computing
model.
Driven in large part by the high-scale requirements of consumer services,
the value of this utility computing model is most clearly evident in cloud-
based internet services. By extension, cloud-based enterprise utility comput-
ing, infrastructure services, and enterprise applications are all becoming a
reality, affording IT a range of new choices in how to deploy solutions across
and between enterprises: within their own data center, in a partners hosting
facility, or with the vendor itself in the cloud. Software built explicitly to
provide a signifcant level of server/service symmetry will enable IT to bal-
ance factors such as cost and control, and to leverage the skills of its key
personnel most effectively. It will afford choice and fexibility in developing,
operating, migrating and managing such systems in highly varied enterprise
deployment environments that are distributed and federated between the
enterprise data center and the internet cloud.
Small Pieces Loosely Joined, Within the Cloud and Across a World of Devices
Application design patterns at both the front- and back-end are transitioning
towards being compositions and in some cases loose federations of cooperat-
ing systems, where standards and interoperability are essential. At the front-
end, lightweight technologies have become ubiquitous. (Terms such as REST
and AJAX reign here.) The standards make it possible to integrate a broad
variety of components seamlessly for the user at the surface of the browser.
Other standards (such as RSS and ATOM) allow the creation of information
feeds that have become lightweight channels and queues between software
components. Declarative languages (such as XAML) allow for rapid UI inno-
vation and iteration where simple declaration takes the place of (more com-
plex) programming.
At a higher level, myriad options exist for delivering applications to the user:
the web browser, unique in its ubiquity; the PC, unique in how it brings
together interactivity/experience, mobility and storage; the phone, unique in
its extreme mobility. Developers will need to build applications that can be
170
delivered seamlessly across a loosely coupled device mesh by utilizing a
common set of tools, languages, runtimes and frameworks a common tool-
set that spans from the service in the cloud to enterprise server, and from
the PC to the browser to the phone.
At the back-end, developers will need to contend with new programming
models in the cloud. Whether running on an enterprise grid, or within the
true utility computing environment of cloud-based infrastructure, the way
a developer will write code, deploy it, debug it, and maintain it will be trans-
formed. The cloud-based environment consists of vast arrays of commodity
computers, with storage and the programs themselves being spread across
those arrays for scale and redundancy, and loose coupling between the tiers.
Independent developers and enterprises alike will move from scale up to
scale out back-end design patterns, embracing this model for its cost, resil-
iency, fexible capacity, and geo-distribution.
7.4
Implications of Software + Services
Software and Services Spectra
The concepts of SaaS and cloud-based services are increasingly well under-
stood by IT departments in organizations worldwide and with this familiar-
ity has come the desire to explore ways in which IT capabilities can be
sourced to reduce cost and improve their ability to innovate.
In particular, the notion of business capabilities such as CRM or email or
user collaboration being available from multiple different sources (on-
premises, hosted, managed, SaaS or cloud), with differing service levels and
differing models of control and governance, and at different price points, has
recently gained a lot of attention in IT organizations.
Whilst it may be some time before this scenario becomes mainstream, the
advantages of being able to dynamically select a service depending on the
business needs are so attractive that many forward-thinking organizations
are very actively investigating the idea; indeed, some organizations have the
provision of these services as a major element of their future strategy.
171
Imagine an organization that, based on a business architecture, has defned
an IT service portfolio that describes all services the business requires or
would like to use. This portfolio can actively be managed, where services are
being provisioned to best ft the (budget) requirements. Services can be pro-
vided by the internal IT organization (in-house or on-premises), they can be
developed by the internet IT organization but be hosted elsewhere (hosted)
or at the other end of the spectrum they can be developed and offered by the
cloud. In this case, managing IT becomes very much a case of fnding and
mixing the best services possible.
Lifes a Balance
When we choose between the different models: internal, on-premises, serv-
ices or cloud-based services, we have to take into account the different char-
acteristics of each service. For example, where cloud services might be
cheaper, the options for customization may be limited. Or where our internal
services might be easier to extend, there is less fexibility when it comes to
replacing or upgrading. The choice between Software (on-premises serv-
ices) or Service (cloud service) determines, among other things:
The amount of control we can exert;
Flexibility;
Pricing;
Trial options;
Instrumentation;
Operations;
Customization;
Extensibility;
Integration;
Richness (of UI features);
Risk of continuity;

These aspects are all relative: it is not that one service will have NO richness
and another will have FULL richness, its more a matter of more versus
less. The user or company requirements then determine if a specifc serv-
ice and its provisioning model fts the need.
172
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example of a building block service is Amazon EC2, an attached service could be
Microsoft Exchange hosted services, and a fnished service could be Microsoft Offce
Live Online
Obviously, there are implications for IT visibility and for the concomitant
governance models based on the choice of where in the spectrum the organ-
ization decides to source a service. Clearly, on-premises application infra-
structure enables the most robust governance models whereas cloud-based
services pose challenges with respect to data privacy, data harmonization,
and control and archiving.
Heterogeneous User Profles and Populations
Organizations are realizing that they have a wide and diverse set of users,
ranging from (usually) centrally located knowledge workers through produc-
tion/task workers, contract employees, freelancers, then partners, suppliers,
and more and more customers with whom they have to support and interact
the organization providing the appropriate access and security for each
individual.
173
For example, many new real estate companies often have only relatively few
centrally located employees and the vast majority of the people whom they
must support may be independent, self-employed real estate agents, some of
whom may even be freelancers working to their own constraints and sched-
ules. On the other hand, an organization such as Microsoft has a large
number of full-time and often centrally located employees and comparatively
fewer freelancers, vendors and contractors. In either case, IT is responsible
for the productivity of all of the individuals in the organization and the busi-
ness as a whole.
More and more organizations with signifcant manufacturing units ask why
they need to provision on-premises email capabilities for their shop-foor
employees. While email may be the vehicle to share organization-wide infor-
mation and updates, it is quite likely that many of these employees will not
access their email, and that a manager may print out the information and
put it up on a bulletin board. They usually start by asking, Why not use a
so-called consumer provider for these user populations? And while some
may beneft and derive value from these services, many are more likely to
look to and leverage commercial grade cloud-based services for these user
populations.
This brings us to the realization that there is not only a spectrum of services
(from internally provided to cloud-provided), but there is also a spectrum of
roles, ranging from centralized (corporate) users to customers or even the
general public. Each of these roles will have a different expectation for the
services they consume: for a corporate user robustness might be essential,
while for someone in the general public the level to which the service can be
integrated (for example, into Facebook) might be more important.
Multi-Headed User Experiences
The customer experience for the future appears to be multi-headed. There
will be a diversity of software and services for the various channels and
devices and the user experience will be tuned to the channel and the inter-
action whether it be a mobile device, a TV, a PC or the rich web. And prob-
ably the best example of this is the email experience Microsoft delivers to its
customers today around Exchange. A user could fnd the richest experience
through Outlook; for a more casual experience, a user with a browser could
also use Outlook Web Access, and a user could use Outlook on a variety of
174
mobile and other devices. A user plowing through a lot of email is more likely
to use Outlook. If the user is on an airplane trying to catch up, that user will
most likely only use Outlook. But if the user is doing some casual email, or
is at an internet kiosk, that user is more likely to use Outlook Web Access.
And a user on the go can use the most convenient available device to access
the same email.
Business Implications
IT organizations of all sizes and from all industry sectors are looking for a
model of IT usage to support their wide spectrum of user profles and user
populations, and a spectrum of available application services is promising
the ability to meet this need. Organizations are seeing the potential of being
able to provide the right levels of service to their entire range of IT users in
a dynamic and agile fashion; that is the ability to provide a new level of Dif-
ferentiated IT. Businesses are thinking in terms of their IT portfolio a
portfolio of capabilities that they want to intentionally partition across both
on-premises and cloud-based software.
7.5
Conclusion
The IT industry has historically been defned by a sequence of infection
points in the way consumers and businesses beneft from computing, and we
are in the midst of another momentous shift a services transformation.
Software as a Service (SaaS) is fundamentally about service delivery
changing how we think about both deployment and delivery of new software
applications. Many of the core assumptions and constraints in the conven-
tional approaches to software deployment and delivery are being challenged
and overthrown with this infection point in service delivery.
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is about the harmonization of multiple
systems and services and fundamentally about service federation and serv-
ice composition. Many of the basic assumptions about applications have been
challenged with the emergence of SOA. The notion of an application as a
static entity has been replaced by the notion of an application as a dynamic
composition of services, often directed by the end user.
175
Web 2.0 is about the social and collaborative experiences made possible
through services on the cloud, and about their monetization. Many of the
core assumptions about the user experience and monetization have been
overthrown by the emergence of the Web 2.0 model.
Together, SaaS, SOA and Web 2.0 are converging to create a new software
architecture model a model of Software + Services. This model is based on
the premise that the harmonization of on-premises software and cloud-based
services will be superior to either of those approaches in isolation. As we
move to software interaction through a broader mix of digital devices and
form factors, the multi-headed experience will become the default user
scenario for both consumers and business users. Being able to optimize the
mix of software and services gives IT the visibility and control to understand
whats happening both inside and outside the corporate network, as well as
the necessary fexibility in intentionally partitioning which capabilities are
best delivered on-premises versus in the cloud. Software + Services will
ultimately enable business to have the optimal portfolio of capabilities to
meet the unique needs of each and every individual user.
The social and inherently cross-boundary nature of collaboration drives the
need for such a user-focused architecture that can quickly deliver highly
useable and fexible support for collaboration. Self provisioning and quick
response to new collaboration partners are essential. When information and
activities need to cross borders, the technology needs to support it smoothly,
driving towards this architecture where all sorts of services can be combined
into one portfolio that the user can pick and choose from. Also, when organ-
izations are looking to more extensively collaborate and combine their serv-
ices to a new offering to the market, the integration of IT needs a pragmatic
approach with the ability to make strategic decisions about who does what;
the essence of SaaS and Software + Services.
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Case ITAGroup
Case: ITAGroup Leaps Into the World of Collaboration
Need to Share Intellectual Property Spurs Move
If there were ever a company ideally suited to beneft from collaboration technology,
it would be ITAGroup. Until now, the expert in people performance management has
relied on the rudimentary internal collaboration capabilities built into the Microsoft
Ofce suite not well suited for such a dynamic, team-oriented organization.
Given the nature of ITAGroups $200+ million-a-year business, the lack of a collabo-
rative environment has been a glaring hole in its quest for greater productivity. In its
role helping clients establish and administer sales, employee and channel perform-
ance improvement programs, ITAGroup assembles teams of people plucked from six
diferent functional areas to support programs that will run at least a year. Each team
must coordinate skills ranging from program development and marketing communi-
cations to technology support and client interaction. Plus, an internal survey found
that, on average, ITAGroup employees work on 6 teams at a time, and up to 20 dur-
ing the course of a year.
Without an efective collaboration platform, managing so many variables has been
a challenge. Communication has been handled via email, resulting in attachments
at varying stages of development being scattered among multiple inboxes, and chok-
ing storage resources. Additionally, the lack of a standardized methodology for stor-
ing critical data has made fnding information nearly impossible. The biggest chal-
lenge we faced was efectively bringing new team members into a project, says John
Rose, vice president of information technology. We needed to be able to share
information, ideas and documents more easily.
Good Technology + Employee Buy-In = Faster Path to Success
ITAGroup believes it has found the answer in the form of Microsoft SharePoint Server
2007. SharePoint features an interface thats familiar to anyone accustomed to work-
ing in Windows. Its easy to set up a collaborative site, it has powerful search capa-
bilities embedded in it, and it can take all that scattered information from email
inboxes and desktop fle systems and make it easily discoverable to anyone with
permission to access it.
ITAGroup is in the midst of a company-wide rollout of the technology, with the frst
collaborative elements introduced to all employees in January 2009. The companys
intranet is running on SharePoint, where its storing corporate data such as ISO
documentation and employee information. A team has been working with consult-
ants from Sogeti to implement an out-of-the-box SharePoint environment thats
requiring less than a $400,000 investment over 3 years.
178
But, as anyone whos overseen a collaboration deployment can attest, merely acquir-
ing technology no matter how well suited it is to the job at hand is only half the
battle. Bringing people up to speed on the new tools, showing them how to fnd
information, and work in tandem more efectively takes time. Change is never easy,
says Rose. But we know that a gradual implementation, progressively adding fea-
tures and functionality, will ease the transition and build excitement. The result is
adoption of an improved collaboration environment, which will ultimately result in a
better company. Rose has been encouraged to hear reports that many SharePoint
customers who experience some initial frustration adjusting to the technology, soon
see the technology as a cant-live-without-it tool.
Getting the Most out of SharePoint: Simplicity Breeds Momentum
Advancing SharePoint to that status, however, requires employees get behind the
technology. And Rose says hes learned that when it comes to a collaboration envi-
ronment, marketing and positive reinforcement of the technology is important. To
make a tool like SharePoint really work, employees have to know about it, and they
have to be convinced to use it. To that end, Rose says its critical to keep things sim-
ple, even if SharePoint has myriad capabilities that can be rolled out at once. Things
have to remain simple.
Once the company builds the momentum it needs, the anticipated benefts of Share-
Point run the gamut. Rose expects it to spur big savings by simply cutting the amount
of time employees spend searching. He also believes that the combination of more
timely information and faster responses will lead to improved customer satisfaction.
That satisfaction fgures to rise further a year or so down the line, when ITAGroup
hopes to extend the SharePoint capabilities to an extranet that will enable clients to
log in and approve copy or artwork, access workfows, or simply get the latest data
on their various performance improvement programs.
Perhaps most importantly, SharePoint will gradually help lower the information shar-
ing walls that have existed between ITAGroups teams and team members. And with
everyone on the same page, management will be able to think outside the box more
than ever, armed with a tool that can evolve to make employees jobs easier.
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8
Social Computing for Business
8.1
Introduction
1
We have been looking at markets, the concepts behind collaboration and
cloud computing. We have explored the anatomy and success criteria of col-
laboration, and we have looked at a model of a mix of Software + Services
that gives us the fexibility needed to achieve it all. In this chapter we will
discuss more scenarios in which Web 2.0 technologies and the model of Soft-
ware + Services can be used inside organizations. The areas and scenarios
discussed are also the areas where you can fnd value, some of which can
perhaps even be included in a traditional business case for a project. A lot
of the scenarios in this chapter revolve around the theme of A New World
of Work.
The New World of Work
2
In a new world of work, where collaboration, business intelligence and prioritizing
scarce time and attention are critical factors for success, the tools that information
workers use must evolve in ways that do not add new complexity for people who
already feel the pressure of an always-on world and ever-rising expectations for
productivity. We believe that the way out of this maze is through integration, simplifca-
tion, and a new breed of software applications and services that manage complexity
in the background, and extend human capabilities by automating low-value tasks and
helping people make sense of complex data.
Bill Gates
8.2
The Emergence of Social Computing
In the current conversation economy, we are seeing enormous changes in
the way that we publish and consume information on the internet. Rather
than simply viewing information on static web pages we are now publishing
1 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb735306.aspx forms the basis of this chapter. Michael Platt
of Microsoft Corporation is the original author of much of the content that is re-used here.
2 http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail/2005/05-19newworldofwork.mspx.
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rich content through blogs and wikis and on photo- and audio- and video-
sharing sites. Instead of solely being consumers of pages downloaded from
the web, people are now sharing, collaborating and creating new content and
entire online communities. Indeed, people are now combining data and con-
tent from multiple sources to create their own custom, personalized experi-
ences and applications.
Many of these evolving concepts and capabilities were dubbed Web 2.0 in
a seminal discussion paper by Tim OReilly in September 2005.
3
In essence,
it is the collective realization that the ability to use the web to write as well
as read rich content, along with support for social networking and the rapid
spread of broadband access, combines to allow people to interact with the
web, online content and one another. At its core this is about fundamentally
changing the ways people interact with content, services and with other
users to provide a platform for harnessing and promoting collective intelli-
gence.
4
Wikipedia defnes collective intelligence as shared or group intelligence that
emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals. People
are no longer just passive consumers of content and data; they are active
participants, and in many cases they are creators creating content and
interacting with a multitude of services and people. Sometimes referred to
as the network effect, this increase in participation, collaboration and in
content creation presents new opportunities to involve the end user in deeper
and more meaningful ways.
We are only just beginning to see the opportunity for these emerging con-
cepts and capabilities both inside and outside the organization, but it prom-
ises to have dramatic and long-lasting impact on business. In the rest of this
chapter we will look at more specifc scenarios in which technology can be
used to be productive in Web 2.0, we will talk about the technology side of
the conversation economy, and we will discuss the roles cloud computing and
Software + Services play in the space.
3 http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html.
4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intelligence.
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8 Social Computing for Business
8.3
Collaboration and Social Computing in the Enterprise
Organizations of all types and sizes from startups to Fortune 100 companies
and from all industry verticals have seen the explosive growth on the web
of social and community sites in the consumer space, such as MySpace,
YouTube and the deluge of Web 2.0 sites. They have seen the response by
major web players such as Amazon, eBay, Live and Google and Yahoo! in
adding social and community elements, and they have seen the interest and
demand that this has created. They are now actively investigating and in
many cases building new community-based portals and businesses for
their own organizations; Web 2.0 is moving into the enterprise.
There are two primary areas in which organizations are interested in using
these concepts and capabilities:
Enterprise 2.0: Inside the organization to improve effciency and produc-
tivity; and
B2C 2.0: Connecting with customers to improve proftability and customer
satisfaction.
The use within organizations is commonly called Enterprise 2.0
5
and is
typically the frst phase.
Usage to connect to their customers and consumers is similar to Business-
to-Customer (B2C) activity but with a social and community basis, and may
be termed Business-to-Community or B2C 2.0
6
. Interest in this use of the
community as a customer is rapidly growing. That is one of the reasons why
popular social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace, with all
their customer profles, are worth billions of dollars.
Enterprise 2.0
This is the kind of organization that we described throughout the earlier chap-
ters of this book. It is the enterprise where employees are autonomous and
collaborative and where bottom-up initiatives are well valued. Where so-called
information workers can be in charge of their own user experience and hence
create for themselves a more intuitive and effcient work environment.
5 http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/issue/2006/spring/06/.
6 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb735306.aspx.
182
Business-to-Community (B2C 2.0)
Businesses of all types and sizes, from startups like Plentyoffsh to For-
tune 100 companies such as General Electric, have been keen to enter the
dialogue with consumers and communities using 2.0 tools. While it is
always smart for businesses to keep in touch with potential clients, the
necessity in this case is especially critical: it is a matter of survival but it can
also be an enormous opportunity.
On the opportunity side, the reasons for this interest and activity in the space
are fvefold:
1. Revenue and growth
The opportunity to enhance existing revenue streams and to build com-
pletely new revenue streams by utilizing community and social network-
ing capabilities. In particular, the cost containment of the recent past has
given way to an interest in the business side in innovation-driven growth
and revenue. The rapid growth and innovation in the Web 2.0 space is
seen as something that companies want to emulate.
2. Web-based economies of scale
Organizations see that they can dramatically decrease the cost of capital
equipment and resources by using a web based delivery model to serve
communities of their customers.
3. Flexible employment models
The use of contract and agency staff for delivery allows fexibility and
agility. Agency and contract staff can be thought of as another, specialized
community and so supported like customers.
4. Community creation as evangelism and support
Customers are the organizations best sales, marketing support and devel-
opment resource. The creation of communities effectively outsources, at
a very reasonable cost, all these cost centers. Indeed, with the inclusion
of targeted advertising to the community, the present cost centers poten-
tially become proft centers.
5. Community leader advantage
Community dynamics are such that the frst successful community is by
far the most powerful, so the organization that owns this community is the
one that controls the vertical. For example, MySpace focused on new music
bands and created a community in that space which it now effectively
dominates, so it has become a major force in the music industry. The con-
verse of this is that if an organizations competitors are frst in the com-
munity space, they will have a very signifcant competitive advantage.
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To make the concept of entering the dialogue a bit more specifc, we can
explore fve particular areas where social computing capabilities can be lev-
eraged in working with customer communities:
1. Innovation and New Product Development
As discussed before, open innovation or crowdsourcing are important trends
of the day. A very large percentage of new product ideas and innovations in
organizations come from suppliers and customers rather than from in-house
labs or R&D organizations. These new product ideas are more likely to be
successful as they have come from the end users of the product and are also
typically less cost-intensive. Clearly organizations that can build a system to
harvest these ideas can beneft from these innovations and derive signifcant
benefts.
The use of social computing based customer and supplier communities as
discussion forums and marketing focus groups for new product ideas and
incubation is a powerful, simple and cost-effective technique for gathering
these ideas. Many organizations are actively investigating the use of com-
munity forums and discussion groups to provide new product ideas and uses
in the product development process. Indeed it is possible to envisage a pro-
gram that automatically scans communities for new ideas and sends them to
interested parties.
An additional beneft of this community-based innovation and new product
development is that the customers have a better understanding of the prod-
uct or service delivered, as they were involved in its gestation, so the cus-
tomer uptake of the product is signifcantly enhanced.
2. Marketing
Probably the best-known application of social computing techniques in
organizations is around viral marketing. The examples of community and
rich content (such as video) being used to generate and spread buzz about
products and services are legion. There are two elements to this viral mar-
keting: initial interest generation and then the viral dissemination. The ini-
tial interest generation is best done with the use of innovative image, video
and audio content it is not unusual to get millions of downloads of creative
video within hours or days of their release, and ongoing interest in a product
can be sustained by having an informational or tutorial element to the con-
tent. The dissemination of this material is done by the internet community
at large using chat and messaging, email and community forums. Again this
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dissemination can be very rapid and widespread. It is not unusual for a new
product or engaging video to be passed to millions of people in hours and to
reach the mainstream media such as TV or newspapers in days.
There are a couple of caveats about viral marketing. Firstly, the target audi-
ence needs to be well understood, and even then the material may not gather
community interest and buzz this is much more an art than a science. Sec-
ondly, an organization cannot control the spread or use of materials; the use
of viral marketing videos in unanticipated ways by the community is well
documented and can cause signifcant side-effects for an organization.
A great example of a viral video is the movie The Machine is Us/ing Us
7
by
the famous cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch. This movie explains in
a nutshell the whole Web 2.0 concept and how it is changing our society. The
video has been viewed more than 8.5 million times.
3. Sales
The cost of sale is normally a non-trivial element of the overall cost of a
product or service. In a Business-to-Consumer organization the community
can act as the collective salespeople, thereby dramatically reducing the cost
of sale, in many cases to nothing. The customers themselves act as spokes-
people and salespeople for the organization. There is no need for a high
pressure and high expenditure sales organization in community-based busi-
nesses, in fact, in many cases it might actually be counter-productive.
4. Support
Support is probably the second most popular area in which social computing
techniques are used. Firstly, there is the use of messaging and chat and other
collaboration techniques for real-time support of their products and services
by organizations. Secondly, there is the use of image capture and video for
problem communication and resolution. Finally and most importantly, there
is the use of community-based product experts and self help discussion
groups. This self-help technique has been shown to work very well in com-
munities such as the shared and open source movement and is a simple and
low-cost way of providing very high-quality support. As with most social-
based systems, however, the actual operation of these self-help groups is not
simple and requires signifcant thought and expertise.
7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE.
185
Support is one of the reasons why Apache and Linux have become so popu-
lar. The hard-core community behind these two open source initiatives is
famous for its online support. If a problem arises, it is sure to be solved
promptly. It is interesting to see that Microsoft picked up on this and has
built a vibrant technical support community for their technologies.
5. Training and Education
Probably the least explored application of social computing in the enterprise
is for training and education. The on-line availability of high-quality audio
and video and other rich media provides a very low-cost and frictionless way
of providing training as well as how to and other learning materials. This
rich content, when integrated with infuential subject matter experts and the
on-line communities and discussion groups, enables a very powerful envi-
ronment for education and training.
8.4
Web 2.0
The recent history of the internet has shown some very signifcant and far-
reaching changes. Ten years ago there were no web-sharing sites or applica-
tions, merely sites composed of static pages and e-commerce. Organizations
had customer-facing websites to connect with internet-savvy consumers and
used the internet as a way to market and sell their products. Internal corpo-
rate intranets were used mainly as a place to post news and policies in the
company portal. More recently, websites have become destinations for com-
munities of users to create and share rich and complex data such as music,
images and video, and to discuss and rate that content.
People are no longer just consumers of content and applications; they are
participants, creating content and interacting with different services and
people. More and more people are creating blogs, contributing to knowledge
bases such as Wikipedia, and using peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies. Some-
times referred to as the network effect, this increase in participation and
content creation presents new opportunities to involve the user in deeper,
more meaningful ways.
There has been a huge amount of discussion on what exactly is meant by
Web 2.0. Tim OReilly originally defned it as the following:
The web as a platform; 1.
Harnessing collective intelligence; 2.
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Data as the next Intel inside; 3.
End of the software release cycle; 4.
Lightweight programming models; 5.
Software above the level of a single device; and 6.
Rich user experience. 7.
These can be grouped into three areas:
The use of the web as a platform;
The web as a place to read and write rich content; and
The social and collaborative use of the web.
The Web as a Platform
Web 2.0 systems use the web as a platform, conceptualizing the internet as
a huge range of interconnected devices that can provide a new level of rich
immersion for the user, an easy-to-use and lightweight programming model
for the developer and a rapid and fexible deployment mechanism for the
supplier. Web 2.0 uses the web to provide a new perspective for the user,
developer and supplier, a new way of thinking about the internet, all of which
allows new and creative uses of the internet.
It should be noted that an important concept underpinning all connected
systems, which of course includes Web 2.0, is that of a service. A service-
based system supports the concept of separation of concerns by the use of
loose coupling and concomitant message passing. This loose coupling allows
functionality to be created as a service and delivered over a network; so, for
example, diary functionality can be provided by a blog engine and be deliv-
ered as a service to the end user or blogger over the internet. Software as a
Service is this delivery of software functionality over the internet, and it
underpins most Web 2.0 systems today.
Looking at the internet as a platform we can see that it has to provide a
number of important platform concepts such as device independence, rich
and common user interface, a common programming interface and a soft-
ware deployment and management mechanism:
Software Above the Level of a Single Device
We are very familiar with software on a server providing services to soft-
ware on a PC (in Windows or in a browser), which then consumes or displays
187
them. While this is a common and well understood model it does not cover
a number of common cases such as peer-to-peer systems or delivery to non-
PC devices like music players, phones or navigation devices. We need to have
a model that includes these cases and covers a higher level of service than
HTTP (the protocol used to transfer the pages of the internet we know and
use) to connect them; it needs to address the concepts of a music service such
as Napster or a communication service such as Skype. We need to have a
model that addresses software above the level of a single device and a single
service, but which includes rich, high level services interconnecting a mesh
of different device types in a symmetric manner.
Probably the best example of this type of high-level service is in Microsofts
game computer, Xbox Live, where gaming services are supplied between
specialist hardware devices working in a peer-to-peer manner. This model
is the general-purpose case of service-based computing and is the Software
+ Services model of computing.
Rich User Experience
The value of rich and immersive user experience has been well understood
in the PC world since the advent of Microsoft Windows, and this has been a
focus of browser based applications for many years. Standards such as Java-
Script and DHTML and technologies such as Flash and Silverlight were
introduced as lightweight ways of providing client-side programmability and
richer user experiences commonly called Rich Internet Applications.
It was a true revolution when a web browser was frst able to provide this
Rich Internet Application functionality. For the frst time, web application
could approach the experience of real desktop applications. Microsoft broke
ground in this feld by porting the familiar email client Outlook to a webver-
sion that very closely resembles the original. Outlook Web Access (OWA) also
used JavaScript and DHTML to provide rich interaction. The collection of
technologies used to provide these rich and dynamic browser-based systems
has been called Ajax, standing for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. Ajax
isnt a single technology or even a set of new technologies but rather a set of
several technologies being used together in powerful new ways to provide
Rich Internet Application functionality. Ajax includes:
Standards that help styles and presentation (using XHTML and CSS);
Dynamic display and interaction (using the Document Object Model );
Data interchange and manipulation (using XML and XSLT);
Asynchronous data retrieval (using XMLHttpRequest); and
A programming language (using JavaScript).
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Ajax is an important component of most Web 2.0 applications and is provid-
ing the ability to create web applications nearly as rich and dynamic as Win-
dows-based applications. Indeed, we are now seeing the advent of Ajax-
based applications that can work whilst disconnected from the internet and
so provide offine functionality similar to Windows-based clients like Micro-
soft Outlook.
There are also sets of technology other than Ajax that are increasing the
value of user experience in areas such as communications, voice and video.
Instant messaging (IM) is heavily used in Web 2.0 applications to provide
instant communications, and there is a wide range of agents and delivery
options available for IM systems. Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) sys-
tems allow voice and teleconference communication over the internet as part
of the user experience. Finally, the provision of real -time, stored or broad-
cast video rounds out the client experience.
Recently, technologies like Flash and Silverlight have also been playing a big
role in enabling media-rich, interactive user experiences, facilitating sophis-
ticated read-write and streaming scenarios, among others.
The breadth, richness and fexibility provided by these technologies moves
the user interface well beyond a dynamic UI to a fully interactive audio and
video experience, which provides new and powerful ways for people to inter-
act with systems and with one another that are still to be explored.
Lightweight Programming Models
In Web 2.0 the programming models, concepts and techniques are signif-
cantly different from those that have been used before. Whilst they are very
heavily service-based and reliant upon the concept of message-passing using
Representational State Transfer (REST) protocols, they focus on simplicity
and ease of use. This has a number of implications:
Web 2.0 programming is based on the concept of separation of concern
using a loosely coupled, message-passing-based model on top of an inter-
net-based and standard set of communications protocols (http), which is
often called REST-ful programming. It implies notions of syndication and
composition where services are provided without knowing how or if they
are used. This is very different from a conventional tightly coupled, trans-
actional and often object-oriented system. It has a different set of benefts
(such as fexibility and speed of implementation) and challenges (such as
integrity and management).
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The languages (such as Perl or Iron Python) and the frameworks used
are simple and dynamic, which provides a low barrier to entry and re-use
and high productivity. The frameworks have built-in support for common
design patterns such as Model View Controller (MVC) and methodologies
such as Agile. They are quick and easy to pick up, use, and become pro-
ductive with.
Web 2.0 applications are inherently composable and compositable; because
they are built with lightweight programming models and standards-based
services, new applications can be created by composing or mashing-up
present applications and services. Mashups are where applications and
services are composed at the UI; composition is the more general case of
services being re-used.
End of Software Release Cycles and Deployment
The platform concepts behind Web 2.0 strike a new balance between the
control and administrative ease of centralized systems and the fexibility and
user empowerment of distributed systems. Web applications are by nature
centrally deployed, so central services can manage applications and entire
desktops automatically. Software as a Service builds on this concept to pro-
vide the idea of software and services delivery over the internet, and Web
2.0 builds on top of Software as a Service to provide social and content serv-
ices over a web-based mechanism.
This usage of SaaS by Web 2.0 as a deployment and release methodology
provides all the well-known SaaS advantages of simple deployment, mini-
mized management and administration and, probably the most important,
instant update and repair. Thus one of the most-touted features of Web 2.0
(and SaaS) is the concept that the system is being constantly updated and
enhanced, often in real-time in response to users requests. Of course, the
issue with this perpetual beta that the community needs to come to grips
with is what happens when downstream applications rely on services or
functionality that the application is providing.
The Read / Write Web
The second important area of Web 2.0 is the focus on data and content, and
in particular the ability of people to create and interact with rich content
rather than just consuming it. If the original internet provided read access
to data, then Web 2.0 is all about providing read and write access to data from
190
any source. This ability of anyone to create content has caused an explosion
of available content from all sources (and of all types of quality). At the same
time, it has created a whole new set of issues around vandalism and the
integrity of data.
As the bandwidth available to the end user continuously increases, the rich-
ness of the content that can be sent over the internet increases. The original
internet was all about text, but Web 2.0 started with music and images and
moved into voice and video. Now TV and movies are the content areas that
are being investigated as part of Web 2.0.
Whilst people and organizations have been searching, uploading and down-
loading all this explicit data and content on the web they have, all the while,
been creating a huge amount of implicit data showing where they are going
and what they are doing. This implicit, or attention data, of Web 2.0 can be
used to predict future behavior or provide new attention-based features. Of
course the collection, storage and use of this implicit data raises challenging
questions about ownership, privacy and Intellectual Property (IP).
Another issue with the huge amount of data on the web is fnding and navi-
gating it. Search engines use the implicit data to fnd textual data, but they
will not work with audio, image or other binary data. In addition, the search
engine often does not have enough contextual information to provide a valid
result. In these cases tagging the data becomes a valuable way of assisting
with data navigation. Web 2.0 applications use tagging and tag-clouds
extensively as a way of fnding and navigating through the vast amount of
data available on the web.
Tag data is data about data, or metadata. One of the major concerns with data
and content on the web arises from the lack of consistent standards for meta-
data and schema. It is impossible to cut and paste something as simple as an
address on the web because there is no standard format for addresses. We
need to understand the different levels of metadata and have standards for
what that metadata is in order to liberate data on the web and, in particular,
to allow composite applications to compile data. This standardization of
metadata in the Web 2.0 space is similar to the goal of the Microformat
effort.
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The Social and Collaborative Web
The third key element of Web 2.0 systems is the concept of social networks,
community, collaboration and discussion. People naturally want to commu-
nicate, share and discuss; this communication is a key part of understanding,
learning and creativity. The unique element that Web 2.0 brings is that of
social networks and community, which are typically enabled by blogs, dis-
cussion groups and wikis. In Web 2.0 the sheer scale and number of people
on the internet creates an architecture of participation where the interac-
tion between people creates information and systems that get better the more
they are used and the more people who use them. This harnessing of the
collective intelligence creates systems that have more and better information
than any one person could generate; it becomes the wisdom of the crowd.
There are a number of different types of collaboration that can occur in Web
2.0 systems:
Content-based
This is where groups gather and collaborate around a piece of news or
content, typically in a blog or a spaces-type environment.
Group-based
In group collaboration people gather around an idea or interest such as a
hobby and discuss it in discussion forums.
Project-based
In project-based collaboration groups work together on a common task or
project such as a development project, a book, or even something as large
as an encyclopedia using wikis.
All three types of collaboration can be used in Web 2.0 systems, and in many
cases more than one can be used.
Content-
based
Group-
based
Project-
based
Figure 8.1: Different Types of Web 2.0 Collaboration
192
8.5
Software + Services Enabling Social Computing
We discussed Software + Services as the realistic hybrid model to use SaaS
in combination with on-premises software. It provides a model to create
right-sized IT for every user and gives the CIO the power to optimize the
IT service portfolio. Software + Services is the model for situating cloud
computing in a real business scenario.
If we look at collaboration and how cloud computing could help, there are
four main reasons why cloud computing and collaboration is a natural ft:
Autonomous users want self provisioning of tools;
Both are crossing boundaries;
Collaboration is about being part of the conversation economy; plus
Traditional reasons, such as cost or performance.
Self Provisioning
When we want to stimulate bottom-up initiatives, and make units, teams,
projects and people more autonomous in creating value for the company, we
need to give them tools. Traditionally the IT department designed and sup-
plied the tools, but we have seen that the prosumer users demand more
control and faster service. Self provisioning and confguration is of the
essence here. Cloud computing fts the bill perfectly, since a lot of the serv-
ices being offered online are extremely easy to provision, try out and con-
fgure. Most likely, business users in every organization are already using
them.
Crossing Boundaries
The best collaboration is across boundaries: bringing together value from
two different sources to create something new and better. This is hard to
accomplish when the tools to support the collaboration are strictly controlled
from within one organization or unit. If we want to address identity issues,
and answer security and ownership questions, a cloud tool is usually more
suited for this than on-premises, corporately controlled tools.
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Conversation Economy
This is an important reason to use the tools from the cloud. If we want to be
part of the ongoing conversations, and join the discussions in progress on
the internet, then we have to be where the social networks are. And the
social networks are in the cloud. Also, we will start to exploit the benefts
of cloud-served solutions. We could, for example, use LinkedIn to update our
CRM system, or use YouTube to do recruiting, or scan blogs for trends rel-
evant to our business, etc.
Traditional Reasons
The reasons for choosing SaaS, as stated in Chapter 1, are as valid for col-
laborative tools as they are for other tools. If collaborative tools are becoming
part of the IT infrastructure, a SaaS version is most logical. Hosted email
solutions are well accepted, as are collaboration portals, messaging software,
etc.
Figure 8.2: In the Cloud
8
8 http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/cloud.
194
8.6
The Web as the Hub
The value of the knowledge found in employees heads and in the databases
and unstructured documents found across the organization has been well
known for a while, and there have been many attempts to collect it into
knowledge management systems, with varying degrees of success. Clearly
when people can quickly fnd critical information and subject-matter experts,
and then work seamlessly together, productivity will soar. This has been
diffcult to achieve in the past, but new technologies such as dynamic work-
spaces, wikis, and enterprise searches for people and data may lower the
barriers to knowledge management and provide a platform for collaborating
on complex and creative tasks.
As we noted however, the real barrier to knowledge management is around
social and value issues in organizations rather than technical ones. These
are not addressed by the technologies per se and hence the expectations
from the technologies themselves should be tempered with the right invest-
ments across people and processes.
8.7
In Conclusion Where Do We Go from Here
The most appealing and potentially most rewarding uses of emerging col-
laboration and social computing techniques in the enterprise are in the cus-
tomer-facing areas of organizations. The entire customer relationship man-
agement cycle will be transformed by the tools and techniques that are in
common use in the consumer space. In marketing, the opportunity to exploit
rich, interactive media and to enable a new world of digital customer inti-
macy through wikis, blogs and online communities will provide new ways
of reaching out to and engaging with potential customers. In customer sup-
port, the use of video and other rich media to assist with problem resolution,
and the use of online communities towards self-service-based models prom-
ises to create entirely new models and frameworks for support.
Beyond the customer-facing business capabilities, it is product innovation
where customer involvement and participation in product design and devel-
opment using blogs, wikis, and discussion forums is heralding fundamental
shifts in what is commonly thought of as the co-creation of innovation. The
other business domain that has the potential to beneft from these tech-
195
niques is training and mentorship, where the use of rich media, messaging,
and chat and other collaboration capabilities has considerable potential.
Overall, the use of new and emerging social computing and collaboration
capabilities in the enterprise, enabled by a platform of on-premises software
+ cloud-based services, promises to have profound and far reaching effects
on how organizations function, and create fundamentally new and powerful
ways of innovating, marketing and selling to, and delighting customers.
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Case UVIT
Case: UVIT Embracing Collaborative Technology to Beneft from Recent
Merger
Univ and VGZ-IZA-TRIAS are all active in the insurance business. Univ is an all-
insurance company; the others focus on health insurance. On January 1, 2007, the
companies ofcially merged into a new company with the temporary name UVIT. (For
the beneft of the readers we will use the temporary name throughout this case. The
new name will be announced at the end of 2009.) The core business is to provide
health insurance coverage for 4.3 million people a quarter of the Dutch population.
Their other (non-health) insurance products cover 800,000 insured. This makes UVIT
one of the largest insurance companies in The Netherlands.
After the merger, the companies started a centralization process. The plan is to reduce
the number of ofce locations from 17 to 5. One of these 5 locations will be the new
headquarters in Arnhem, which is scheduled to open in September 2009. This ofce
has a completely diferent interior design. The architects of the building have designed
the ofce with a limited number of foors, leading to a very open work atmosphere.
Merger as a Time for New Opportunities
According to Mr. Jo Knippenberg, CIO at UVIT, the merger ofers an ideal time to
refect. It is a moment to closely examine the existing organizations and think about
what the new organization will look like after the merger. It is a time to zoom in on
the details, when you can look at what went wrong and what went right in the past,
and then take these lessons into account when developing the future organization.
The merger ofers a a unique opportunity to create a new setting. It is a moment to
think about how people work, how they collaborate with people inside and outside
of the organization, and how technology can help. How do you forge all these ele-
ments together to form something that contributes to the greater good: to your cli-
ents, your prospects, to your relations?
Challenges in Collaboration and Corporate Image
Mr. Knippenberg faced a couple of challenges in daily practice during and after the
merger and subsequent reorganization. The frst challenge that arose during the
merger process itself was how to best support communication, because without
communication there is no collaboration, and without collaboration you essentially
do not have a unifed company. A closely related question was how to stimulate and
enable the employees to create efective collaborations among themselves. How do
you make sure everybody has access to the right information, in the correct form, at
the right time and the right location?
This, of course, is not only relevant for employees but just as much for third parties.
The new possibilities here are way beyond the patterns used in traditional outsourc-
198
ing. New forms of collaboration can emerge as the result of the use of new tech-
nologies and tools. It could very well be that the party that is best able to collabo-
rate with his competitor, is the party best positioned to determine the future.
Another challenge that UVIT is trying to solve in the process of the merger is how to
fx the problems with the corporate image. Traditionally, an insurance company is
not a sexy company to work for, rather dusty and stufy instead. This poses chal-
lenges whey trying to recruit new employees, since you also want to attract good
people and young talent. They represent the future of business. How do you create
an environment, a workplace where these people feel at home?
The New Organization
The big question of course was how to respond to the challenges above. One of the
actions after the merger was to reduce the number of ofces. Of the 17, only 5
remained. The new headquarters was designed to ft a completely new philosophy.
As a departure from the old situation, people dont have fxed ofces anymore but
will be equipped with laptops and mobile phones. The idea is to create a more open
and fexible working environment, ofering new options in how to work and collabo-
rate.
Next to this upcoming big-bang change, other modifcations have been made. These
changes were frst implemented with a small group of people before addressing the
larger worker population. First see if the experience is satisfactory, before implement-
ing on a larger scale.
As an example, currently people are using Microsofts Live Ofce Communications
Server product. This product can show the status of people (free/busy), which some-
times produces resistance. Employees sometimes see it as Big Brother is Watching
You. Use of this function is voluntary and not required by the company. Experience
shows that groups start using it whenever they are ready for it. If one sheep leaps
over the ditch, others will follow. And greater adoption immediately leads to new
questions. Why would we only use Live Messenger inside our company and not
directly with our customers and suppliers?
Where Communication Server saw slow gradual adoption, Microsoft Ofce Share-
Point Server was immediately more widely adopted. One of the most interesting
consequences is that during regular meetings attendees no longer use paper. Meet-
ing minutes and notes are directly recorded in SharePoint. Employees, including those
who could not attend, can read back the notes immediately after the meeting. Here
too, the process of adoption is a gradual one. It has to become part of the normal
way to do your job. On the one hand, this of course takes some training; on the other
hand, its a toolbox with a variety of tools from which employees have to select the
right ones themselves.
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Case UVIT
Social Networks Build the Organization
From the commercial side of UVIT there was a growing demand for Facebook-like
applications. At this point, UVIT still maintained a strictly controlled environment
where it was not possible to use all sorts of applications available on the web. To
meet the demands, a new organizational mindset would be needed. Such radical
changes in policy are more or less prescribed by the outside world. UVIT wants to
fnd a way to accommodate those kinds of options, but this is still undiscovered ter-
rain. Control versus freedom: what is the wise course? UVIT is currently in an explor-
atory phase when it comes to these issues.
Meanwhile, a special UVIT social network was born and is being used frequently by
a small group within the IT department of the company. Every employee is responsi-
ble for keeping his or her profle up to date with relevant information and added value
to the company. Using someones profle, you can directly explore the relations
between colleagues. Who is close to whom? Who is his or her boss? Who is the boss
of the boss?
In the old days, we needed all kinds of organizational diagrams. This is no longer
necessary. The hierarchy has become self-maintained. A new employee joins the
organization via his or her profle and can immediately contribute. New employees
are also immediately part of the organization. An organization is very dynamic. The
organizational movement of people is a dynamic in itself, and this social networking
tool is great way to gain insight into this dynamic.
Technology and opportunities happen to enter your life. The same happens to your
company. As a company, you have two options: you resist or you embrace. At UVIT,
the latter obviously was the case.
Trust Means Everything
UVIT is very aware that only providing the hardware and software will not make a
new company. To create a new frm the whole concept has to become part of the
DNA of the employees. It is a cultural thing, not something ordered by the top man-
agement, but embraced by the people on the work foor.
Trust is of the essence in this transformational process. Without trust none of the
things we have envisioned will happen. We have to earn the trust of our employees.
Both employees and management have to trust each other, trust that we are building
the new company together. Trust is one of the key factors of our new emerging cor-
porate culture.
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9
Fourteen Questions to Guide the Revolution
9.1
Introduction
Throughout this book, we have been promoting a new way of looking at your
organization, of creating bottom-up management and better supporting
cross-boundary collaboration by using Software as a Service. All bundled
up, it amounts to nothing less than a revolution in the way you do business
and the way you support business with IT. This chapter will help you keep
a cool head by providing you with fourteen questions to continually ask in
order to keep the revolution pragmatic and to facilitate any initiative that will
help to achieve your goals. Fourteen questions to keep in mind to prevent
being swept away by hype.
Most of the answers to these questions will depend very much on your situ-
ation, and on the specifc project or challenge you are trying to address. Still,
we can sketch certain elements that should be considered when answering
these questions.
Questioning Evangelists
The IT industry is composed of a myriad of vendors and service providers,
each offering their own value and point of view. Trying to convince you of
abilities, and optimistic about the future, they will offer to solve all your
problems using the latest tool or insight. So what do you ask when a vendor
talks about a new collaboration solution? What do you say when someone
from the IT department stops by your desk to talk enthusiastically about
the newest project regarding wikis or SharePoint? You can use this list of
questions to keep your feet on the ground. Ask the questions below and lis-
ten carefully to the answers you get and whether the important points are
covered.
If you are not an IT manager but a provider or someone inside the organiza-
tion who wants to see changes in the way collaboration is performed, this list
will help you prepare the answers you will need to convince and involve
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others. You will have to know the answers since the questions will be asked
eventually, even if not at frst.
The questions and conceptual answers are based on frequently occurring
business-IT alignment issues. They are distilled from failed and successful
collaborations or SaaS projects and from the personal experiences of people
working in the collaboration or SaaS space. Some relate to collaboration spe-
cifcally, while others are SaaS-related.
9.2
The Fourteen Questions to Guide the Revolution
Whats what? 1.
Whos collaborating? 2.
Why collaborate? 3.
Whats wrong with email? 4.
Is technology all we need? 5.
When is the next version due? 6.
What does it cost? 7.
How does this integrate? 8.
Is it secure? 9.
Where do I start? 10.
What is our competitive advantage? 11.
What boundaries are we crossing? 12.
As a service? Not as a service? Mixing Software + Services? 13.
When have I won? 14.
1.Whats What?
What does collaboration mean? What is cloud? And SaaS and S+S? What do
we mean with all the terms? Can we agree on terminology?
Thanks to the state of marketing and the chatty and dynamic nature of the
internet, numerous interpretations will surface for anything new. Conse-
quently, an essential part of any project these days will be to examine the
concepts, assumptions and terminology used. What do the different partners
who are in conversation to create strategy understand the terms to mean?
What defnitions and associations do people use when talking about the
topic? Is collaboration something focused on people or focused on corporate
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9 Fourteen Questions to Guide the Revolution
relations? Is cloud something cool and user-focused or is it technical infra-
structure? You cannot expect two people to understand a term exactly the
same way unless they have talked about it. As we have seen, even the term
collaboration can cover anything from business-to-business platforms to
email, document sharing or conference-call solutions.
To create this shared understanding of the concepts and terminology, a
brainstorming session, a workshop or ongoing conversation can be very use-
ful. Experience tells us that people-to-people contact works better than read-
ing a website or one person defning meaning for everybody. This book, a
website or an external expert can effectively provide the starting point for
your own discussions.
2.Whos Collaborating?
Who are they? Where are they? What kind of people? Are they from our depart-
ment? Are they only IT people? Whos collaborating with whom? Are they from
another company? In what time zone are they? What language do they speak?
Whos managing them?
Traditionally, collaboration is seen as something between colleagues or
even between people working in one project. As we have shown, collabora-
tion is a much wider feld, addressing all interactions between people (or
even companies), crossing organizational and cultural boundaries.
The question of who is collaborating will give you insight into the chal-
lenges you will or will not face when creating a collaborative culture. Look-
ing beyond job titles or department names and really examining the people
and their characteristics gives you an idea of what you will run into in trying
to stimulate or enhance their collaboration.
Once you have established whether the people belong to one organization or
work across organizational boundaries, you will be able to look into the mat-
ters of provisioning, ownership, and confdentiality.
What to look for in an answer: in trying to formulate an answer to this
question, talk about which people will collaborate, across which boundaries,
and what kind of people they are (technical, business, older or newer gen-
erations, etc.). A good way to defne the different collaborations and see who
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is involved is to create scenarios: story-like illustrations that describe a day
in the life of the different audiences.
Another way to fnd and defne the different collaborations is to make use of
existing technologies. Tools are available that help you explore your (social)
network at the push of a button. The result of this network crawl can then
be used to visualize the different kinds of relationships that exist inside and
outside your company. The results will surprise you. Some people within
your organization may play pivotal roles as community leaders, of which you
werent aware before.
3.Why Collaborate?
Why would they want to collaborate? Why do we want them to collaborate? Are
they already collaborating? Whats in it for me? Whats in it for them?
People collaborate, by themselves, automatically. They will seek help, dele-
gate tasks and look for contributions from others. When addressing collabo-
ration from a corporate view, the question should be asked at these three
levels:
Why do we need to address collaboration from a business perspective? 1.
What will be the corporate gain for addressing it across the enterprise?
Whats the beneft from a team-perspective of better collaboration? What 2.
will get the project manager or team leader excited about this initiative?
What will motivate an individual to collaborate differently? Whats in it 3.
for the individual user?
If you are missing one of these levels, it will make the adoption of new ways
of collaboration problematic. The goals you are looking for with these ques-
tions can have the form of real business cases: for example, saving time and
money that is currently wasted on ineffective collaborations, or increasing
the quality of work in an administrative environment through improved
communications and response to anomalies. Goals can also be more indirect:
helping recruit and retain people by making their daily activities more fun
and engaging, thus creating a better work environment and better knowl-
edge retention leading to (ultimately) some higher business goals. The cas-
cade of goals must be rooted in reality, preferably confrmed by the actual
people who will be impacted.
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As we have learned from Open Innovation (or Crowdsourcing), at the indi-
vidual level the drivers for collaboration can be very business-like (money,
effciency in achieving goals, doing a better job) or very personal (peer sta-
tus, social interaction, curiosity).
Any answer talks about the goals at the different levels, how they strengthen
each other and how they ultimately contribute to explicit corporate goals.
Every good answer will also include a personal answer for the person asking
the question: and whats in it for you personally is .
4.Whats Wrong With Email?
Why has email worked so far? Will any new solution be better than email? Why?
Will people stop using email? Do you still use email?
Anyone coming in to talk about new ways of collaborating will need to have
a vision of how email fts in the picture. If email remains the preferred
medium, alternatives will never reach full acceptance and maturity. As an
analogy, if we were to give people bicycles but they still wanted to keep their
feet touching the ground all the time because they always have we would
not gain any speed by distributing bikes (if anything, it would slow people
down). The same goes for the introduction of better support for collaboration:
the advantage must be demonstrated, tried and proven to be a true advantage
over email. Document creation in an online environment is much more eff-
cient then sending links, emails and keeping multiple copies, yet only when
this is shown in practice can it convince people to stop using email for this
purpose.
Email itself has been too good for its own good. Its ease of use and wide
adoption have made it the burden of present-day working life for many peo-
ple. There are now even special courses in how to handle email effciently!
In essence, email is an old concept, ported to new technology; the paper let-
ter, replaced by the fax, then by email still sticks to an old distribution model.
You write something, address it, post it, let it go, and wait for someone to
respond or just hope it all works out, depending on the kind of message.
More advanced solutions, as an add-on to email, have been around for a long
time: project management tools, delegating tasks and reporting are examples
found in most present-day email tools. Yet the actual use of these features is
very limited, and they are hardly ever used correctly and to full advantage.
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Not because the features arent useful, but because nobody ever explained
them, or people never got used to them, or there was no corporate or team
advantage and thus no real support was given to implementing the fea-
tures.
A different way of looking at email is needed in order to move forward. By
asking this question repeatedly you can begin to more sharply defne how
any new solution can and should be used.
An answer talks about the current role and use of email in your organiza-
tion, perhaps the problems of email with regard to process control, version-
ing, knowledge management, governance, etc. It will talk about how different
solutions will take chunks out of everyones email load, leaving email as a
minority medium used only where the other tools and communication chan-
nels do not suffce.
5.Is Technology All We Need?
What else needs to be done? What needs to change? What does your solution
NOT address? How much should we spend besides this solution to get the right
results? What is the most diffcult part?
If a vendor or service provider states that collaboration will be greatly
improved using a piece of software or a service in the cloud, perhaps sticking
to the build it and they will come adage, it clearly shows an incomplete
perspective. A tool or service can defnitely help, but, as we have demon-
strated, it is only a minor part in the larger effort to change how people work
and how we provision IT support for it. Creating a strategy that is founded
(and funded) on the business side of an organization, with a practical
approach to delivering short-term visible results, would be the ideal combi-
nation. A strategy would also include statements as to how to anchor the
collaboration strategy in the organization: whos the owner, what are the
activities that we are trying to improve or support, and how will this evolve
over time.
What to look for in an answer: it will talk about the role and impact of the
tool or the service, the architecture (how the tool or service will ft in an
ever-changing environment), the people (usage) and the change that is
needed in culture and management.
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6.When Is the Next Version Due?
Is this a stable solution? How long before we need to change this to the next ver-
sion? What will be next? Will this work in ten years time? Can we radically
change business processes and structure and still use it?
One lesson from the past is that we can always expect change. Our vendors
will keep offering new features and solutions, but even more importantly,
our business-environment will keep changing rapidly. In a globalized world,
business is changing at real-time speed. Especially in the SaaS world, ver-
sioning and upgrades are a continuous process.
Currently it is hard to change to a different set of tools: user and developer
training, new licensing costs and other investments have to be made. Given
the certainty that the only thing we can count on is change, we need to plan
for change in the IT space, too. We must ensure that either replacing tools
with the latest version (or different tools) is extremely cheap and easy or
that a particular solution will be able to withstand a lot of change going
forward.
Both solutions, easy to change and resistant to change, revolve around
the use of standards and the actual design of the tools and services them-
selves. Also the architecture surrounding the tool or service must be ready
for change. When selecting technology, attention to (open) standards, insight
into future product roadmaps, or testing changeability can help to prevent
getting stuck with any solution. For example, a good way to test the change-
ability of any solution is to start a proof of concept where a radical change to
the confguration has to be made within a minimal timeframe, demonstrat-
ing that future investments can be kept low when changes are needed.
Also, it pays to examine the way a vendor or service provider handles
changes: is there an open forum discussing features and updates, or is it a
closed innovation process? How long are multiple versions supported (if at
all)? How accessible is the service provider for feedback and support? All
these will give insight into the risk of change: their change and your risk.
A lot of software available on the internet is in a permanent beta stage. Can
your company handle that? In the past most companies waited for the next
version or the frst service pack before implementing something. This
attitude might not be wise in the now real-time economy.
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An answer to this question will show how change will not affect the core
elements of a solution, how new needs can be met with the current tool or
service. Also backward compatibility, open standards and release planning
are part of the answer. Ultimately, the solution should ft your overall IT and
business architecture, which in itself of course is also adaptable to change.
7.What Does It Cost?
How are we paying for this? What are the costs over time? What will it cost to
abandon this choice in the future? Does this make sense from a fnancial plan-
ning perspective?
SaaS is often sold using the payment model: pay-for-use with little upfront
investment. It is often a variable cost, making it attractive to bookkeepers
and giving the illusion of being easy to scale down in times of need. In real-
ity, comparing cost is actually hard to do. How do we get the real cost of
hosting something on-premises and how do we compare it to renting some-
thing as a service, taking into account an uncertain future? When contem-
plating the model of software and services, and fnding the right balance, an
honest comparison must be made. Take into account risks, costs of human
resources, costs of downtime and ongoing licensing, and usage costs for dif-
ferent provisioning scenarios. In particular, the cost of extra support or
unexpected growth in usage can drastically tip the scales in the comparison
if a contract is not carefully screened in the course of this comparison.
When estimating cost we look at the contracts of any as a service offering
and compare it to on-premises numbers and estimates of support, staff, over-
head, etc. Pay special attention to the cost of scaling and exceptions. A useful
method can be to describe several scenarios, then for each scenario estimate
the likelihood that it will become reality, and then calculate the cost (as a
range).
8.How Does This Integrate?
How does the tool or service ft into my existing IT infrastructure? Are we using
the same user database? Is it integrated into my Enterprise Search? How does
it impact my content management system? Is it integrated with my email system?
What else needs to be done to assure good integration? How do we migrate?
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This is one of the hardest questions for any new IT solution, and even more
so for functionality provided as a service. Often the simplicity of the solution
provided in the cloud will look attractive, but soon there will be a demand
from users and management to integrate it with existing systems: perhaps
initially for sign-on credentials but quickly also for integration of all kinds
of other data, such as client information, stock data or internal fnancial
feeds.
When looking at collaboration services, the need for integration with existing
data might not be obvious at frst, but soon it will become evident that it is
closely tied to information management tools (content management, busi-
ness intelligence), governance structures (users, rights-management) and
existing presentation platforms (websites, portals, desktop environment).
The closer systems integrate, the lower the barrier to using the technology
and the greater the chances of widespread adoption. A platform that is dis-
connected from everything else will either slowly die out (due to the diff-
culty of keeping data in synch with other sources) or it might become the
new authority leaving data in other sources more and more unreliable.
Existing basic interfacing standards allow for integration, but beware of
solutions needing lots of manual integration: it might make the as a service
solution more expensive and more diffcult to maintain than something
installed on-premises.
When talking to vendors or service providers or when selecting a service
from the cloud, the options for integrating should be among the most impor-
tant decision criteria. Over time, as the cloud matures, we would expect
more and higher level standards to become available, making integration
slightly easier.
At the same time, this is also an important question to ask your own IT staff,
since their estimate on ease of integration might differ from that of the serv-
ice provider.
What to look for in the answer: it will demonstrate how the technology fts
in with and makes use of existing data, it will show how business intel-
ligence and integration of information will help create better interactions
between people.
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9.Is It Secure?
Will others be able to access my data? Can my employees do things that are bad
for our company? Will we run into trouble with the auditors?
This question is brought up most often by people who say that SaaS will
never happen. Because how can we rely on the confdentiality or security of
a service running somewhere in the cloud, on physical hardware that is
shared with perhaps thousands of unknown others from countries all over
the world?
Yet there wasnt much concern when the business world introduced the
Blackberry mobile email solution: confdential email fows through servers
worldwide without it causing too many worries. In the end its not just about
security, but about trust and service levels: can we trust the service provider
to observe the terms of the SLA regarding security (and availability, conf-
dentiality and all the other elements that make up an SLA).
You do need to keep asking this question, perhaps not so much as to pre-
vent SaaS from happening altogether, but to make sure that any SaaS solu-
tion you introduce fts corporate policy.
Surprisingly, sometimes the people who are the most notorious detractors
can turn into true supporters if engaged early. An auditor will help fnd solu-
tions to keep an external service conform to auditing rules; a security offcer
can be engaged to scope an SLA to cover the basics needed to keep new
services from compromising corporate security, etc.
10.Where Do I Start?
How do I start? How do I manage this change? What are the frst steps? How
do we maintain progress over time? Is there an easy way in or are you propos-
ing a big bang? How can we be sure every step of the way has value?
As a rule, big bangs dont work. Experience tells us that the best way to
improve IT or organizations is to create an active evolution toward a future
goal, allowing for many small steps and minor (or even major) detours along
the way. Improving collaboration is no different: start small, where the
chances of success are largest and a win is likely. Create support among tech-
211
savvy early adopters but aim for greater late majority adoption by the less
tech-savvy users by listening to their demands and feedback. Start small
with a (perhaps self-selected) group of enthusiasts and then spread the ini-
tiative using the early adopters as seeds within new groups. The frst
advances will be in the easy category, perhaps only later involving different
organizations, time zones, languages, cultures, etc.
Also, when trying new ways of collaborating, freedom is key: dont over-
systemize the initial solutions but allow for enough freedom to see what
works best. If the freedom is essential to the collaboration, it might even be
part of the fnal solution. If the freedom is too much for the later adopters,
the early experiences will tell you how and what to formalize. It is important
to note that this freedom is not just in the tools and support but even, and
especially, in the way the collaboration team is managed. Experiment with
different levels of involvement to fnd what works.
The answer to this question for your organization will talk about the scope,
the people and a situation where improved collaboration will provide imme-
diate value to the participants. Expect to think small, to select a small group
of people who will start using the new technology. If they are happy with the
new technologies, they will automatically become your evangelists who will
spread the tool within the organization.
11.What Is Our Competitive Advantage?
What are we doing that competitors arent doing? What are we doing differently?
How is that visible in our IT investments? How is that visible in our systems
architecture? How quickly will this competitive advantage erode?
If you are replacing a proprietary solution with a commodity solution, either
as software or as a service, you need to ask whether you dont squander your
competitive advantage by the move. And vice versa: when looking to fnd
specifc solutions for parts of your business that are defnitely NOT differ-
entiating you from the competition, it wouldnt make sense to build a custom
solution when a commodity is available. Especially when contemplating SaaS
solutions, and the levels and methods of customization, a keen eye is needed
to defne and manage competitive advantage. Most often its not the tool or
service itself that is part of your advantage, but its the way you use the tool:
the processes and confguration that make the end result unique. So if you
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are in the market to procure a service that allows for NO custom process and
NO confguration, dont expect to beat the competition with it!
As an example, imagine a small web retailer that has thought of a unique
way to checkout and pay for online shopping, while a competitor would dif-
ferentiate on price, assortment, branding, shipping, or some other element.
Our web retailer would probably choose to build or confgure a specifc shop-
ping-cart and checkout solution, while the competitor would be happy to
choose one of the many standard shopping-cart services available. While the
example is one dimensional, when creating a business-and-IT strategy, these
are the choices to be made.
Answer this question by looking at the business strategy and the competi-
tion, and translating it to focus on areas within the IT portfolio that are more
important than others, that have higher priority than others, and should
(probably) be more fexible than others, too.
12.What Boundaries Are We Crossing?
Are we connecting to anybody or anything outside our department or company?
Are we crossing internal or external boundaries? What is the rationale behind
these boundaries? Where do they come from? Will people object to crossing
these boundaries? How can we make it easier to cross?
In business and IT, more often than ever we are crossing boundaries: we are
using external resources, we are working with people from other organiza-
tions. Be it in a supply-chain collaboration, or in a buyer-vendor relation: we
are not simply exchanging money and goods but were also exchanging
information. So when thinking about any project, the specifcs that defne
your interactions with the environment are the ones that ultimately defne
your company. You ask this question to fnd the best model for provisioning
solutions. You also ask this question to get an idea of how diffcult it will be
to create or improve collaboration: the more boundaries you are crossing,
the more work needs to be done to cross these boundaries. If all people col-
laborating report to the same manager, it will be easier than if they report to
different managers, let alone different companies.
In answering this question, look for a description of well-known explicit
boundaries, but also look for implicit or cultural boundaries that might hand-
icap successful collaboration.
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13.As a Service? Not As a Service? Mixing Software + Services?
Cant we host our own? Should we host our own? Should everything that we have
be as a service? Is there an actual business case for SaaS in this situation? How
do you address the insecurities that come with SaaS?
Your instincts might still tell you that, to minimize risk and dependence
upon others, owning and hosting everything in-house or on-premises is
still best. The case for providing Software as a Service has been made many
times over, yet the reality is that owning IT solutions gives the illusion of
greater control. When exploring the right mix between services that are in
the cloud and services that are owned, maintained and hosted internally, a
rational view of costs and risks is essential. Include the actual costs of on-
premises people, hardware, licensing and (increasingly) power and compare
them to the costs of an off-premises solution. Compare the features of generic
solutions with the features of custom created solutions. Compare the risks of
downtime and disasters to SLAs that are not met, etc.
As mentioned before, any conversation around the as a service question
will revolve around setting boundaries: What functionality is generic, what
is specifc to us? It will also talk about the different levels of as a service:
hosting and support on a hardware platform (servers) is a different level
than generic part-solutions (collaboration portals), and is different from a
business solution or service (CRM). The technology-level services might
be easiest to use, but the business-level services will provide the greater
beneft provided they offer the right services needed by your organization.
Finally, keep in mind that the model of as a service is also a valuable model
for IT departments to use in defning and offering their own services. The
choice then becomes not so much between as a service and not as a service
but rather between as our own service and as someone elses service.
What to look for in the answer: it will take organizational strategy and
input as to competitive differentiators to defne what to have and what to
hire, what to produce and what to procure. The answer will defne the
boundaries of the organization-specifc IT.
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14.When Have I Won?
What defnes a successful implementation? How can we measure success? What
would be the end-goal for this solution? Can we track progress? Who will deter-
mine if this was a success? Are there early warning signs of failure we should
watch out for?
For any project or initiative, the defnition of success is probably half of the
success itself. Once we know specifcally what we want or need, it becomes
easier to get it. Collaboration is an area that is often ventured into without a
clear defnition of success: we want to support people, but we cant predict
how they will adopt it, or even We want to install a portal. While the exact
usage might be unpredictable, and perhaps even intentionally so, there must
be a way to track progress. There must be a way to know if things are evolv-
ing in the right direction, or if perhaps corrective action is needed.
The measure of success for any organization will, of course, depend on
specifc circumstances. At the same time, there should be early signs of
change, in the way people work and the tools they use. Some things to look
at could be:
Email is used less;
When people come to work, they start their portal, tool, collaboration
environment before they open their email;
Users start talking about their collaboration portal;
News and success stories are no longer spread using email but posted in
the right places; and
People start experimenting with new additions to the tool, create mashups
or start requesting new features.
After the new situation is starting to become normal, the real business
benefts should become visible: better knowledge retention, better responses
to exceptions, quicker answers to questions from clients or suppliers,
improved success rates on proposals, etc. Ideally the signs of success are vis-
ible at the personal, team and organizational level.
When answering this, talk about how to track progress, how to correct or
stimulate if progress is not as expected. Look for the early signs of success
and know how to measure business success.
215
Case Toyota Material Handling Europe
Case: Toyota Material Handling Europe Sheds Paper Processes for Mobile
Collaboration
IT Seizes Opportunity to Establish Collaborative Best Practices
A few short years ago, the service operation at Toyota Material Handling Europe was
living in the dark ages, technologically speaking. Toyota Material Handling Europe
(TMHE) began operations in 2006 to manage the Toyota and BT materials handling
business in Europe. With more than 100 years of combined Toyota and BT experi-
ence, they are active in more than 30 European countries.
TMHE provides a complete range of Toyota counterbalanced forklift trucks and BT
warehouse equipment, supported by services and added value solutions. TMHE is
the European regional organization of Toyota Material Handling Group (TMHG),
which is part of Toyota Industries Corporation (TICO), the world leader in materials
handling equipment.
That is, service personnel at TMHE were drowning in paper processes. Technicians
got their monthly maintenance plans on paper. Then they submitted paper work-
sheets with feedback on customer calls, and it took back ofce staf sometimes up
to two weeks to update customer histories, invoices and parts replenishment data.
Whats more, the processes difered by country. And with 4,800 technicians spread
amongst 30 countries, making more then 3.5 million service assignments a year, that
meant a lot of unnecessary complexity as the back ofce was asked to translate
widely varying types of forms and data into useable intelligence about customers
maintenance needs.
The technology team looked upon the situation as an opportunity to implement best
practices that could help standardize data, introduce a layer of collaboration, and give
back ofce staf and feld technicians better access to more up-to-date information. The
result would be improved service efciency, and thus increased service revenue. Because
more than 3,300 of the technicians work from vans, mobility was a key consideration.
Team Approach Yields Streamlined Mobile Process
Working with a team of 10 back ofce staf, service technicians, and IT personnel from
Toyota Material Handling, Sogeti consultants joined representatives from Lawson Soft-
ware and feld service automation specialist Intermec in building an integrated solution
that today combines a Lawson ERP environment, a web-based interface used by back
ofce staf, and a mobile Intermec application built on Microsofts .Net framework.
That application resides on the 2,200 PDAs that have been deployed and are in use by
mobile technicians.
When a customer initiates a call with one of 400 service center personnel and a nearby
technician is located, the service dispatcher is able to immediately push information,
216
such as the customer history and directions, to the customer site, to the technicians
PDA. The back ofce can continue providing the technician with any information he or
she needs, such as safety and inspection rules, or even broadcast bulletins to all mobile
technicians. Conversely, technicians can communicate directly with the back ofce to
provide information, such as a corrected vehicle identifcation number, that can be
instantly updated throughout the system. (The PDA is also equipped with the diagnos-
tic tools and documentation needed for technicians to troubleshoot.)
When a service call is completed, the PDA is used to capture the customers signature
and submit it electronically, along with the job worksheet, directly to the back ofce,
allowing service center staf to review the job immediately to better ensure quality
of service.
System Designed to Combine Standardization and Local Touch
Despite the obvious gains it knew it would achieve in transitioning from paper proc-
esses to automated ones, Toyota Material Handling Europe also made sure to take
into account the myriad of potential cultural impacts such a project can have, says
Bo Sivenius, director of IS promotion. Among the factors considered were:
how a core process is implemented across operations in multiple countries that
are running sometimes widely varying technologies;
how to standardize forms sufciently to create uniformity while also leaving room
for local customization; and
how older employees are afected when asked to embrace a new technology.
Solution Delivers Award-Winning Results
The total project inclusive of a wholesale business process change, extensive educa-
tion and training for all the technicians, and signifcant software and hardware pur-
chases required a substantial, undisclosed investment. It was money well spent,
says Sivenius.
The payof has been quite good, he says. Were being perceived as a more innova-
tive, efcient company.
In addition to improved customer satisfaction, Sivenius says the efort has resulted in
more accurate information, improved cash fow, increased efciency among technicians,
and a 30% reduction in back ofce costs. It also has garnered recognition, as the third
release of the system was named Best Mobility Solution at Microsofts .Net Awards in
Sweden last year. The fourth release, with updated technology as well as support for
additional countries and languages, will go live in the frst quarter of 2009.
217
10
Debunking Collaboration Myths
10.1
Introduction
There has always been collaboration. Our ancestors worked together in their
struggle to survive, and their descendants did the same. Up to now, collabo-
ration has always occurred among small bands huddling together in strong-
holds. Companies, organizations and groups of people act as self-reliant enti-
ties in battle with the outside world. After all, there can only be one best.
The internet has, however, brought about a change. The introduction of new
technologies has caused small cracks to appear in these bastions. New forms
of collaboration have been created by people who are looking beyond their
companies own walls.
This expanded work sphere introduces an extra measure of complexity, as
it involves more than just collaboration between people. It also requires col-
laboration among companies as reciprocating entities that together generate
a completely new chain of value. Furthermore, it requires collaboration
among computers in the form of mashups and the cloud, for example.
The Internet of the future will be suffused with software, information, data archives,
and populated with devices, appliances, and people who are interacting with and
through this rich fabric.
Vint Cerf
1
Extremely wild rumors are circulating about all these new forms of collabo-
ration. This chapter is intended as an antidote to these myths. Each section
will debunk a specifc tall tale that is currently making the rounds.
1 http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/11/02/digitalbiz.rfd/.
218
10.2
The Myths
The Tool Is All You Need
Make me a community is a request that companies are frequently heard to
make. They think that by simply installing a social tool, such as a wiki, blog
or forum, the entire company is immediately transformed, obtaining the
stamp of Web 2.0.
In practice, the process runs entirely differently. Tools do not make an
organization, people do. The employees have to put these tools to use; they
must propagate and spread the underlying ideas.
Companies have a history, a period of existence during which they have suc-
ceeded in creating a certain culture, now more or less inscribed in the com-
panys DNA. And this genetic inscription is not so easy to re-write (or over-
write). It has become a feature that distinguishes one company from
another.
Therefore, change must occur gradually. It can be stimulated by employing
a social tool but must certainly also be reinforced by a small group of people
capable of motivating and inspiring other employees to use these applica-
tions. Only when the number of users of these tools has reached a certain
size, at which time a certain tipping point is reached in the organization,
only then can this behavioral change be written into the companys chromo-
somes and, as a result, a new species of company (with a new form of col-
laboration) be created. It is consequently an evolutionary process and not a
revolution.
Humanity was not created in one day. There is 7 million years of evolution
inscribed in the human genome.
Must Be Invented Here
Many programmers fall into this trap. Code that is written by another devel-
oper and has to be applied to a companys own program never fully satisfes
one hundred percent of the requirements. The code must always be tinkered
219
10 Debunking Collaboration Myths
with in order to make the best possible use of it. The code is made the com-
panys own, so to speak.
This attitude has been adopted by many companies, even in terms of all the
web services that they now use: anything not built by the companys own
IT department cannot be any good.
This view is of course incorrect. Hidden behind service providers are often
communities of intelligent people attempting to earn their living by means
of the service, as incredible as this may sometimes seem. How could such an
industry possibly survive if its practitioners were only offering ramshackle
services? If such were the case, would they not just be digging their own
graves?
In fact, the web runs on trust. Parties throw in their lot together in order to
jointly proft from a given situation. As soon as one of the parties harms this
online relationship, then the defaulting party will suffer the consequences.
The web is especially unforgiving in this regard. It is a big machine that relies
on reputation and holds a grudge; thanks to search engines, past indiscre-
tions are remembered forever. Parties must therefore always endeavor to put
their best foot forward; failing to do this means that they soon will be step-
ping into their grave. In order to earn trust, organizations have to be trans-
parent. Show the outside world what youre doing.
It is certainly good to realize that a great many services exist in a permanent
beta stage; they are never fnished. Millions of people currently depend on
online services, for example for email, that have never been offcially released
from the beta stage of their development. There are often no guarantees.
Data Cannot Be Made Secure (Except Behind a Closed Door)
Many companies are afraid that the internet is not safe. A great deal of money
is spent by IT departments on making company computers secure against
all kinds of external viruses and other marauding threats from outside. The
danger is, however, somewhat of an illusion.
Many employees have complete freedom on their home computers and want
similar freedom at their workstations as well. When the IT department does
220
not cooperate in this regard, then employees are often smart enough to fnd
ways to nevertheless realize their desires.
It would be much better for companies if they schooled their own employees
on the dangers of the big bad internet. Every day sees another new article
posted on the internet describing how yet another company has allowed
sensitive information to leak out. Often, these breaches of security result
from the thoughtless actions of company employees. A slight lapse in think-
ing and information is suddenly available on the street! Companies need to
alert all their employees to all types of dangers that risk loss of information.
Policy must be geared to this point, and this policy must be embedded in
employee minds. As a consequence, security is a continuous process in which
companies are constantly training and retraining their employees.
Tools Change People
Were seeing an evolutionary change. The people in the next generation who are
really going to have the edge are the ones who master the technological skills and
also face-to-face skill.
2
Recent research has suggested that the internet is causing our brains to
function in a completely different manner than the way to which we were
accustomed. With increasing frequency, we are basing decisions on right-
brain activity; creativity and intuition are becoming progressively more
important.
Tools, such as the internet, transform humanity, and humans then modify
their tools. The result is a circle from which there is no escape but that may,
indeed, be virtuous. It is important for humanity to take the lead in this
dance. Without human beings there are no tools. Therefore close and con-
stant examination of human behavior is crucial in order to adapt the tools to
meet human needs in the best possible way.
In the near future there will be all kinds of intelligent tools (agents, bots)
swarming the internet, tools that are intelligent on their own, tools flled with
all kinds of artifcial intelligence that will help us. These tools will facilitate
our on- and offine collaboration.
2 http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE49Q2YW20081027.
221
Tools are therefore subordinate to human beings (extensions of man). They
are only facilitative and can never be dominant.
Collaboration is Difcult
People need each other in order to achieve certain goals. If we did not band
together with other people, we would still all be living in the Stone Age. We
would be cowering in holes in the ground in order to escape as much as pos-
sible from the various threats of the external world.
People are therefore accustomed to working together, which is not to say that
collaboration is easy. Collective action has always been complex, and the
internet has only multiplied the degree of complexity. In a previous age, you
could look each other square in the eye when making a deal; now, you have
to rely on a virtual personality, who might be located on the other side of the
world. How do you build up a relationship with such a remote person in order
to do business together and realize a shared goal?
Examples from practice, such as the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, show
how it is possible to work together on the internet and collectively attain
results. Such web collaborations make completely different demands on com-
panies and their employees. Instead of closed, they have to be open; organ-
ization is no longer top-down, but bottom-up. And consequently, in the year
2009, there is an entire list of traits that employees and companies must now
acquire in order to survive.
The section above has already suggested that an entirely new race of humans
is emerging and that these new men and women are using their brains dif-
ferently than their ancestors did. This development is literally and fgura-
tively an evolutionary process. Companies will therefore have to invest in
training in order to bring these types of employees to maturity and enable
them to realize their full potential.
There Is No Final Solution
Every company is different. What works for one company does not necessar-
ily work for another. In fact, companies can be viewed as a kind of jigsaw
puzzle, so to speak. As result of the most recent technology, the pieces form-
222
ing the puzzle of company proftability can now also come from locations
outside the company itself.
Companies must therefore actively be on the lookout for external pieces that
ft well with what they already have. One assembly of the jigsaw can result
in a picturesque landscape; another might end up as a self portrait, while a
third attempt may yield a cubist interplay of lines.
No single solution can be the right one forever. We live in an around-the-
clock economy in which people are always capable of contacting each other.
The possibility of radical overnight change makes it necessary to constantly
re-examine the ways in which companies must operate. And this continuous
monitoring of feedback also evolves as it adapts to a type of business organ-
ization undergoing constant revision in response to changes in the environ-
ment and in anticipation of future developments. All this looping occurring
as far as possible in real time!
It Must All Go Online
Mashups and clouds are now making it seem as if everyone just simply has
to release everything and publish it on the web. This is of course untrue.
Critical information that enables a company to distinguish itself from com-
petitors is typically information that companies want to keep within their
own walls. There are, of course, unforeseeable consequences of allowing
competitors free access to such information. Commercial distinctiveness is
then instantly lost, and a company is robbed of its ability to provide added
value. Companies must certainly keep a close eye on their own value chains.
Parts of the business process can undoubtedly be easily outsourced. The
issue is therefore to identify the element that can be replaced by a service in
the cloud.
Making this determination could result in the creation of new value chains
extending beyond company walls. In such circumstances, companies must
focus on what they do best, outsource things that others do better, and keep
an eye on the ecosystem of services on offer. A service that is perfectly good
on one day might on any subsequent day be replaced by a still better service
from another party. The feld in which companies are now operating is so
dynamic that they cannot permit themselves the luxury of overlooking any
223
opportunities. The IT department, in collaboration with the business depart-
ment, must constantly be looking out for the next environmental change.
It Is All or Nothing
It is best to begin small. A company cannot, of course, transform itself all at
once. In just procuring the tools, a company is far from fnished its process
of adaptation. It is ultimately the companys people who must be changed,
along with the associated business culture.
A big bang scenario will only run into resistance. It is much more sensible
to follow a gradual approach. Allow the company to frst become familiar
with a blog or a wiki. When one of these tools is accepted by everyone and
people are capable of using the tool on their own, the next tool is then made
available.
Be ready in advance to accept the fact that not every tool will be accepted by
everyone. If such is the case, dont try to enforce acceptance, but withdraw
the tool. Attempt to discover what is causing the resistance; gain consensus
and offer a new tool in order to achieve similar results. Tools might be used
differently than was envisioned. Dont be scared, let it happen, the results
might positively surprise you.
It is a question of trial and error. Web 2.0 might not only transform the
heart of the business but also, most assuredly, the hearts and minds of
employees.
Collaboration Will Not Work in Old-Fashioned Hierarchies
On the web we can fnd all kinds of examples in which people collaborate.
One of the common myths within all these examples is that they only work
within bottom-up organizations. Leaders are no longer needed. The old hier-
archies have to die in order to create a true collaborative organization.
Clearly this is not true. Organizations without leaders cannot exist. However,
the role of a leader whom we have implemented within our organizations
since the rise of the industrial revolution has to change. Leaders can no
224
longer work the old-fashioned way by pushing orders top-down to the work-
ing people.
The new leaders must listen to the ideas of the working people. Encourage
the people and their ideas. Empower them in order to spread and embed
those ideas within the organizations.
Management guru Seth Godin has written a book Tribes: We Need You to
Lead Us
3
about this subject. From his point of view,
Management is about manipulating resources to get a known job done. Leadership,
on the other hand, is about creating change that you believe in.
Linda Dunkel and Christine Arena published a white paper called, Leading
in the Collaborative Organization: How Collaboration Drives Innovation and
Value Creation in Todays Corporations.
4
In it they say,
Collaboration is not about shifting from command-and-control to coax and cajole.
Instead, collaboration is an essential tool for the new kind of business leader the
facilitative leader one who engages relevant stakeholders in solving problems col-
laboratively and works to build a more collaborative culture in his or her organization
or community.
The Credit Crunch Will Kill Collaboration
We are now experiencing diffcult times. Every country, every organization
is facing the fact that the fnancial crisis has vaporized zillions of dollars.
How are we going to survive this disaster?
Organizations now have the choice. Do they stop investing or not? Will they
sit on their money and wait for better times or will they invest in innovations,
hoping that they will be the new leaders in the near future?
Collaboration within and outside the organization can make a huge differ-
ence in these harsh times. By using all kinds of online tools, organizations
3 Seth Godin, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, Penguin Group, 2008.
4 Dunkel, Linda and Christine Arena, Leading in the Collaborative Organization: How Collaboration Drives
Innovation and Value Creation in Todays Corporations, Interaction Associates, June 2007.
225
can tap into the collective mind of their customers. Plug in to their knowledge
in order to improve products, invent new ones and survive! Collaboration is
the killer application for murdering the fnancial beast!
10.3
Conclusion
In an interview on November 1, 2008, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales stated
that:
Were really just at the beginning, still, of collaborative efforts. In video, right now,
were still back in many ways in the Web 1.0 era. If you look at almost everything on
YouTube, its individuals doing videos, either funny cat videos, or drunk girl videos
seem to be quite popular there. What we havent seen yet in video is large-scale col-
laborative projects.
And with this observation, Wales hit the nail on the head. Considering the
time that has passed since the introduction of the internet as well as the
disruptive effect of this new technology on entire industries, it is impossible
not to conclude that the impact on our society has been enormous. And the
repercussions are only just beginning. Some of the worlds most prominent
companies online have only existed for less than 10 years!
All of us are standing on the threshold of a fundamental transition. The ways
in which we are accustomed to doing business are based on an organizational
form created in the industrial revolution, an historical phenomenon that
reached its zenith at the end of the eighteenth century. The blessings of the
internet have entirely transformed our overall worldview. It is therefore no
longer possible for us to continue following the road that we frst began trav-
elling back in the seventeenth century. We are at a crossroads but do not
precisely know which road to take.
According to Al Gore, the technologies behind the internet can save us all:
Now is the time to really move swiftly, to seize these new possibilities and to exploit
them Web 2.0 has to have a purpose. The purpose I would urge as many of you as
can take it on, is to repair our relationship with this planet and the imminent danger
we face.
226
It is therefore not so strange that a large number of horror stories are now
cropping up. However, we should not let these ghost stories frighten us.
Instead, we need to continue to probe to the very heart of the matter in order
to discover the new types of collaboration that the future has in store for us.
In this way, we will be able to make use of the emerging new practices in our
own companies as quickly and adaptively as possible.
227
About the Authors
Erik van Ommeren http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikvanommeren
Erik van Ommeren is responsible for VINT the International
Research Institute of Sogeti in the USA. He is an analyst, public
speaker and co-author of the books SOA for Proft: A Managers
Guide to Success with Service Oriented Architecture and Open for
Business: Open Source Inspired Innovation.
Sander Duivestein http://www.linkedin.com/in/sanderduivestein
Sander Duivestein is a senior analyst at VINT, the International
Research Institute of Sogeti. He is also an internet entrepreneur.
Prior, Sander was a software architect at Capgemini. He is co-
author of the book Me the Media: Rise of the Conversation Society.
John deVadoss http://www.linkedin.com/in/jdevados
John deVadoss leads the Patterns & Practices team at Microsoft.
His responsibilities include platform and architecture strategy
for the Microsoft application platform and developer tools. He has
over 15 years of experience in the software industry and has
been at Microsoft for over 10 years.
Clemens Reijnen http://www.linkedin.com/in/clemensreijnen
Clemens Reijnen is a software architect at Sogeti and was awarded
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) by Microsoft. Cle-
mens has a broad background in software development and
architecture. He also runs a technical blog.
Erik Gunvaldson http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/103/558
Erik Gunvaldson is a senior program manager for Microsoft
Online Services. He manages the partner, customer, and com-
munity programs of Microsoft Online. He has over 20 years of
experience in IT.
229
Index
A
Ajax 187-188
Akst, Daniel 63
ALIPR 111
Amazon 34, 108, 134-135
Amazon Web Service 67
Apple 66
Application Service Provider, see ASP
Arena, Christine 224
ASP 11-12
attention, continuous partial 115
autonomy 77-78
Azure 166-167
B
B2C 2.0 181-185
innovation 183
marketing 183-184
product development 183
reasons for 182-183
sales 184
support 184-185
training and education 185
Babauta, Leo 142
Barabsi, Albert-Lszl 4
Beckstrom, Rod 77
Bell, Alexander Graham 89
Berger, Suzanne 65
Berners-Lee, Tim 35
Blogger 67
blogging rules 152-154
Bloglines 114
blogs 76, 98
volume 109
bookmarking 107-108
boundaries, crossing 26-30, 212
Brafman, Ori 77
Brynjofsson, Erik 78
bullthorn acacia 55
business reality 1-7
Business-to-Community, see B2C 2.0
butterfy effect 4
C
Carf, Christopher 5
Carr, Nicholas 60
Cerf, Vint 217
change:
managing 210-211
responding to 77-78
Channel 9 153
Chaplin, Charlie 46
cloud (see also cloud computing) 9-30
and mashup 68
defnition 9-18, 202-203
guiding questions 201-214
relationship with SaaS 12-15
stages of adoption 67-68
terminology relating to 14
two dimensions 167
cloud computing:
defnition 9-10
emergence 164-167
enabled by Software + Services
192-193
examples of services 15
Cluetrain Manifesto 57-58, 75-76
Coase, Ronald 27
230
collaboration 9-30
anatomy of 87-124
and innovation 24-26
by whom? 203-204
conversation economy 192-193
costs 208
crossing boundaries 192, 212
dealing with versioning 207-208
defnition 18-26, 202-203
evolving 44
free 24
goals and rewards 146-155
groundwork for successful 125-155
guiding questions 201-214
impact of technology on 42-44
in enterprise 181-185
in nature 56
integration 208-209
joint proposal by two parties 27-28
managing change 210-211
measuring success 214
motivation for 23-24, 204-205
myths 217-226
reasons for 192-193
requirements for excellence 131
role in evolution 55
rules 149-154
security 210
self provisioning 192
shared vision 147
software matrix 121-124
tools 92-121, 218, 220
types of 191
within a project 22
collaborative culture 128, 138-146
collaborative leadership 141
collaborative mindset 142
collective intelligence 180
Collins, Charles 1
communication 87-92
electronic 89-92
tools 88, 92-121
competitive advantage 211-212
Comtesse, Xavier 65
consumer demands unique experience
36-37
consumployee 77
continuous partial attention 115
conversation economy 192-193
Conversation Prism 59, 92
conversation society 162-163
conversations:
markets as 57-58
naked 58-60
ongoing 74-76
society of 56-61
credit crunch 224
crossing boundaries 192, 212
cost 26-30
reality of 29-30
crowdsourcing innovation 24-26
culture:
collaborative 128, 138-146
determined by people 144-146
D
Darwin, Charles 51-54
DataTelephone 90
Debategraph 138
Del.icio.us 107-108
deliverables, building 94-97
deployment and release 189
Digg 67, 107
digital natives 23, 81-83, 115, 145
discovery 109-112
disruption 159-160
Drucker, Peter 33-34, 147
Dunkel, Linda 224
DZone 108
231
Index
E
eBay 34, 108
effciency 47
electronic mass media 163
Ellul, Jacques 39
email 89-90
end of 120
problems 90-92
role of 205-206
versus wiki collaboration 91
Enterprise 2.0 125, 181
evolution theory 52-54
experience, unique 36-37
F
Facebook 34, 67, 104
fax 89
fnancial crisis 1-2, 6-7, 224
fnch 52-53
Fire Eagle 118
frm, new nature of 51-69
fve forces model (Porter) 74-75
Flickr 67
Ford, Henry 36
FriendFeed 34, 100, 118-119
G
Gartner Hype Cycle 67-68
GEN-Y-ers 23
goals 147-155
Godin, Seth 5, 7, 224
Google 130
Google App Engine 67
Google Maps 67
Gore, Al 225
government, competetion in 29
Groove 95-96
H
Hamel, Gary 62, 84
Holland Casino 71-72
Huang, Jeffrey 65
Hype Cycle (Gartner) 67-68
Hyves 34
I
IBM Cloud 67
IBM Many Eyes 138
ICQ 97
ideation 24
identity 128, 133
Illich, Ivan 18, 60
industrial revolution 36, 46-47
innovation 24-26
consumployee as source of 77
new age of 62-63
of management 84
instant messaging 97, 100, 188
integration 116-119, 208-209
interaction 97-99
internet, infuence on business 2-3
interruptions 114-116
invisible hand 44-45
iPod 66-67
Israel, Shel 76
IT:
consequences of technological
innovations 82-84
facilitating knowledge-building 83
ITAGroup 177-178
iTunes 66
J
Jaiku 100
232
K
Kennedy, Dennis 125
knowledge:
building corporate 83
building 94-97
convergence of 35-36
knowledge management 94
collaborative 80-81
Kondratiev, Nikolai 40-41
Kondratiev Wave 41
Krishnan, M.S. 62
L
leadership, collaborative 141
Levine, Rick 56
lifestreaming 59, 101
LinkedIn 103, 105-106
Live Mesh 67, 96
Locke, Christopher 56
Long Tail 63
Lorenz, Edward 4
M
Mackenzie, Deborah 43
management:
future of 62
innovation of 84
Management 2.0 61-68
Many Eyes (IBM) 138
Margulis, Lynn 55
marketing, viral 183-184
markets:
as conversations 57-58
changing 74-81
Marx, Karl 36
mashup 63, 68, 116-118
integration 116-119
Maslow pyramid 148-149
mass media, electronic 163
McLuhan, Marshall 39-40, 61, 87
media 162-163
media revolutions 163-164
Meltdown Monday 1, 5
Metcalfes law 101
microblogging 98-101
Microsoft Groove 95-96
Microsoft Live Mesh 67, 96
Microsoft Popfy 67, 117
Microsoft SharePoint 71-72, 125-126,
157-158, 177-178
Microsoft Virtual Earth 67
mindset, collaborative 142
Modern Times 46
Morse, Samuel 89
MSN Messenger 100, 114
MySpace 34, 104
myths 217-226
N
Naked Conversations 58-60, 75-76
news feeds 113-114
notifcation 112-116
interruptions 114-116
O
Offce Communicator 113
open innovation 24
OReilly, Tim 185
organization:
and collaboration 18-26
autonomy 77-78
impact of change 73
responding to changes 77-78
Orlikowski, Wanda 139
Orr, Julian 146
Ozzie, Ray 159, 166
233
Index
P
Page, Larry 130
paradigm shift 34
Perez, Carlota 42
Pipes 67, 117
platform concepts 186-189
Plato 38
Pony Express 89-90
Popfy 67, 117
Porter, Michael 63-65, 74
Prahalad, C.K. 62
presence, reporting on 99-101
printing press 163
productivity 73-84
improving 78-80
programming models 188-189
prosumer 36
publishing company 157-158
R
Rasmussen, Chris 91
rating 107-109
REAAL Verzekeringen 49-50
real time 60-61
relationships 101-109
Representational State Transfer
(REST) 188
reputation 107-109
REST 188
revolution:
industrial 36, 46-47
media 163-164
technological 33-48
rewards 129, 147-155
Rich Internet Application 187
Richardson, Adam 66
Rifkin, Jeremy 63
RSS 113-114
rules 149-154
blogging 152-154
S
SaaS 159-175
choice for 213
conceptual map of 16-17
costs 208
dealing with versioning 207-208
defnition 165, 202-203
downside 14
emergence 164-167
examples of services 15
integration 208-209
managing IT focus 166
managing risks of software acquisi-
tion 165
relationship with cloud 12-15
security 210
service-level agreement 134-136
terminology relating to 14
upside 13
Satir Change Model 5-6
Schumpeter, Joseph 42
Scoble, Robert 58-59, 76, 153
search engines 110, 190
Searls, Doc 56
security 210, 219-220
self provisioning 192
service as a service 16-17
service-level agreement 134-136
Service-Oriented Architecture, see
SOA
service providers, map of 17
services, mixed with software 159-175,
213
Shared Service Center 11
SharePoint 71-72, 125-126, 157-158,
177
Sifry, David 152
Simon, Herbert 3
six degrees of separation 106
Smith, Adam 44-45
234
SNS 105-106
SOA 174
evolution of 161-167
social bookmarking sites 107-108
social computing:
areas of use 183-184, 184-185
emergence 179-180
enabled by Software + Services
192-193
expectations 194-195
for business 179-195
in enterprise 181-185
social networks 34, 67, 102-108, 191
Social Networks Software (SNS) 105-
106
social structure 101-109
social technographics ladder 145
society of conversations 56-61
Socrates 38-39
software, mixed with services 159-175,
213
Software as a Service, see SaaS
software matrix 121-124
Software + Services model 159-174, 213
enabling social computing 192-193
implications 170-174
principles 168-170
Solis, Brian 59, 92
speed of business 60-61, 74-76
Spencer, Herbert 54
starfsh 77-78
status, reporting on 99-101
Stimmt AG 31-32
stock market 1-2
Stone, Linda 115
StumbleUpon 107-108
survival of the fttest 54
Sydved AB 85-86
system as product 66-67
T
tag-cloud 80-81, 190
tagging 97, 110-111, 190
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas 5
Talpa Creative 26
Taylor, Frederic Winslow 45-46, 139-
140
Taylorism 45-46, 140
technographics ladder, social 145
technological revolutions:
impact 33-48
six 40-48
technology 206
adoption curve 43
and trust 133-134
impact on collaboration 42-44
impact on community 34-37
infuence on business 2-3
negative consequences 37-40
telegraph 89
telephone 89
telex 90
Thamus, King 38-39
Thomas, Jesse 59, 92
Thoth (god) 38-39
time-place matrix 121-122
time-way matrix 123
TiVo 34
Toffer, Alvin 36, 60
Tomlinson, Ray 90
tools, collaborative 92-121, 133
TopCoder 25
Toyota 79
Toyota Material Handling Europe
215-216
transparency 60, 130
trust 128
and technology 133-134
levels 132
235
Index
model for 129-138
need for network 137-138
shared model of 149
trusting information 136-137
trusting people 130-132
trusting websites 134
Trustsaas.com 135
truthiness 60
Twirl 115
Twitter 34, 99-100
type letters 163
U
user experience:
multi-headed 173-174
rich 187-188
user profles, heterogeneous 172-173
UVIT 197-199
V
value, source of 76
value chain:
by Porter 64-65
unbundling chains 63
unbundling 64
Value Chain 2.0 65-66
viral marketing 183-184
vision 147
W
Wales, Jimmy 225
web:
as hub 194
as platform 186-189
collaborative 191
evolution of 162
read / write 189-190
social 191
Web 2.0 11, 175, 180, 185-191
communication tools 92
defnition 185-186
focus on data and content 189-190
platform concepts 186-189
programming models 188-189
stages of adoption 67-68
types of collaboration 191, 191
Web 3.0 112
web feeds 113
web media 164
Web Science Research Initiative 35
Weinberger, David 56
Wesch, Michael 184
Whittaker, Steve 92
wiki 95
collaboration 91
defnition 95
empty 127
Wikipedia 34, 67, 116, 137
Windows Azure 166-167
Windows Live Photo Gallery 110-111
Woloski, Matias 16-17
work, new rules of (Babauta) 142-144
X
Xbox Live 187
Xobni 118-119
Y
Yahoo! Fire Eagle 118
Yahoo! Pipes 67, 117
Yammer 99
YouTube 34, 67, 109

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Collaboration in the Cloud

How Cross-Boundary Collaboration

The frst chapter will then introduce the concepts of collaboration

Chapter 2 talks about the larger shifts in

Chapter 4 looks at the effect inside organizations

Chapter 5 shows the different ingredients of col-

Chapter 6 is about the basics that need to be in

Chapter 7 talks about the reality of

Chapter 8 goes one step deeper into the areas

Throughout the book, between the chapters, you will fnd

Plateau reached in:

Basic Web Services

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