Conversationware

I thought it would be a good idea to look for Sharepoint success stories.

An old colleague - sorry Roger, the phrase nearly works both ways - was fired up about the capabilities of Sharepoint 2007, and so I wanted more evidence.

Google search for ‘Sharepoint success story’ and the first result is from HP, a re-assuringly titled ”

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Success Stories

First in the list? Alberta Pensions Administration Corporation (APA)

The result?

Pants. Not available….are they using Sharepoint? See below

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The second link is available - but doesn’t mention Sharepoint, and the third doesn’t exist at all (webpage not found) and so on.

I spotted a familiar UK name example at the bottom of the list, Wiltshire Constabulary, - but that link puts me through to an index of case studies….which doesn’t include Wiltshire Constabulary. Grief.

Perhaps there could be an arrest warrant issued soon…please?

In the interests of balance, there is the Microsoft customer evidence site - but there is a large amount of will do, plans to, intends to - type language.

I’ll be interested to see what transpires in this, the third incarnation of Sharepoint. How much longer will companies wait for the finished article.

Lastly, I saw this post from collaboration loop, which seems to ask many of the questions that I also have - without too many answers yet.

The questions:

Is SharePoint a Web 2.0 platform? Is SharePoint a content management system? Is SharePoint a workflow manager? Is SharePoint a social computing platform? Or is SharePoint a portal to other applications?

(I’m not sure why I link to Collaboration Loop, as comments don’t seem to be published on their site anymore. It’s a bit like being lectured instead of having a conversation :-))

Anyhow, The Answer:

Well…the answer to all of these questions is a conditional “yes.” SharePoint does have the capabilities to function in all these roles.

But - the article’s point then extends to the fact that it isn’t best of breed in any area, and is partnering with best of breed in multiple disciplines to deliver the goods. For how long will that last, and how does a customer company make a decision. I wonder.

I’m an advocate of Gmail, with instant messaging, voice and voicemail built in - this coupled with desktop notification is significantly more useable for me than collections of web and client software from other vendors. Especially impressive is the ability to pick up gmail (and voicemails) on your mobile There is now a meebo-like web embedding of a group web chat facility,

The integration of a RSS reader with the email is more than convenient and with feedburner joining the ranks, I can see all of these things eventually supplementing the google desktop search tool to deliver me a very personalised search and delivery of tailored information.

Google has provided google docs, online hosted documents for groups to share, be updated and notified about. The aquisition of Jotspot hasn’t really hit yet, on the surface at least, but I’m looking forward to some basecamp type project collaboration from that, and now with google aquiring Zenter, we can have online slideshows and presentations too.

Youtube is starting to get quite useful, and I didn’t even mention google maps yet, which apart from giving me a quick, and slick, way to calculate journey times, has now gained a user business review facility

People question whether it is right to trust all your information to google, in the same way we trust banks with our money. But when I used Google Checkout to pay for a new laptop recently, instead of paypal, it occurred to me that many of us already do.

Where’s our unified communications Google? I know we can get voicemail through the mobile email, but surely that’s only the start.

When considering Speech Recognition as an interface for anything, just think about how it is to be used, by whom and where they’re calling from.

Having used Speech Recognition to access Exchange email, calendar, contacts, my CallXpress voicemail and corporate directory for the last two years (we had Exchange 2007 functionality 2 years early from AVST), I have to say that it has been a learning experience.

The first thing to relate is that it is often more comfortable as a solitary activity.

Somehow, you can hear your own voice change when talking to a machine.

It is the trepdiation that you’ll forget the right phrase to use, along with slower and louder speech, which means you end up sounding almost like ‘British person talking to foreign person’. Like an idiot in other words, and after a very short while, a self conscious idiot.

The worst thing is knowing that any slips will result in you having to repeat yourself.

Repeating oneself (no pun intended) is irritating to have to do, not to mention the fact it also attracts instant attention from anybody around you - and thus aptly demonstrates to your colleagues that even a dumb machine can’t be bothered to listen to you.

The funny thing is, most people wait for the machine to finish talking even if they know they can interrupt and they know what the machine is going to say. Such manners abound in the UK, even to inanimate objects that you can’t see!

If you are in a car on your own, this technology is fantastic, hands free and driving licence points saving and reduces home login time sorting through email because you deleted them somewhere near Oxford.

Trust me though, using it in public is about as cool as walking along with a £10 bluetooth headset over the ear.

As I wrote about here, I’m now pretty much convinced that browser based applications are just better for users, and the help-desk, than using client installed software.

However, there has always been a certain disconnect with the web apps, through not being notified of new things (or worse, getting email notification overload).  I’m sure I’ve read about Sharepoint suffering from this. And from my own example, there was no way I could rely on myself to check web based email on a regular basis as days could fly by.

So therefore, browser based applications need a client!! Don’t they?

My initial inspiration for this came mainly because of how useful Google Mail and Talk were with desktop notifications, even though the email was browser accessible.

For me, notification has made a crucial difference to personal adoption of web based personal email, as I can forget to use the tools, but as long as someone else maintains the effort, the notification drags me along!

One other aspect of client based browser software has convinced me that this Enterprise 2.0 adoption discussion could benefit from something so simple as desktop notification, as follows:

My company installed and deployed a browser based unified communications application over the last few months, and we slowly came to the realisation that although management were actively encouraging adoption (which shouldn’t be underestimated), there was a problem with people not logging in.

The network effect of Metcalfe’s law means that the less people that are logging on, the less useful the system will be.

In our case, initially we heard comments like, ”I logged on, but wasn’t anyone else on there….”

So, three things happened to put this right

1. Management continued to encourage people into at least logging on

2. One of our very clever technical types wrote a installer with a wrapper which automatically started the system every time the user’s desktop machine switched on plus,  

Included in the software wrapper was a facility to prevent the user accidentally closing the window, asking “Are you sure you want to close this window?” which meant people were more likely to STAY attentive. If minimised, the app ran in the system tray.

- this wrapper was the major difference in my opinion!

3. We trained more heavily and over a more closely sustained period than before to encourage people to cross the ‘first click’ barrier.

The difference in Adoption is amazing, and as simple as that. These things helped us reach a critical mass, and the true value became apparent to all users. Fantastically it’s now creating user passion and some great feedback!

Of course, it helps that the application is of great benefit once the users get there, but at least the application has the chance to succeed or fail.

One more useful browser adoption feature tip is the multiple home pages facility within Internet Explorer 7. Now every time I physically open my browser, it means that my Google Reader and Google Docs open alongside, resulting in daily attention to other updates!

OK, time to stop now.

I hope that BCR don’t mind me promoting their reports, and using their article on UC adoption. Particularly interesting was that Unified Communications hasn’t often been a simultaneous purchase with the VOIP system (See picture). I think this is because the proposition is not yet understood by many.

 I enjoyed the article, and it is apparent that the vendors are   scrambling to define UC, and it’s associated ROI and benefits.

Unlike BCR, I find it useful to align technology to the user interface, and therefore would keep UM separate, as this uses the existing email client.

I personally believe that Real Time IM, telephony, and multi media conferencing (multiparty audio, web and video) will use the IM or presence front end, with or without the most convenient voice device, whether pot, Ip phone or mobile. VOIP is only a transport, not a software interface.

Because users will adopt extra functionality in their existing interface much more easily than adopting a new interface for existing functionality - i guess that Sametime and LCS have opened their front ends for the real time telephony play.

In addition, presence needs to be proliferated amongs other applications, like email, portals, chat and communityware, and therefore the single sign on and user management of MS and Lotus will attract users and admin staff alike.

The existing UC benefits will be personal and team productivity, and location independent working, which could pay for the technology quite easily, but Business Process based communications is unlikely to be served by either of these front ends.

Instead, there is a requirement for a ‘work area’ that could be defined loosely as ‘workflow’ for knowledge workers. This should be with an easy to use interface, of a wiki, or mindgenius for example, and topic based advancement and discussions. I’m pretty sure Sharepoint doesn’t yet fit that bill, even with it’s wiki plugins because of a heavy IT involvement.

Not to digress too much, but there is also whole missing piece of the jigsaw with the personal inbound contact management being poorly served and standards free. I expect this will be delivered by some net driven technology eventually.

A grand title, but I like the play on words.

I was very taken with the post on new presence from Alec Saunders, it does make you think.

The presence word seems to have been bandied about as the future of VOIP, and looking back, this has been for quite some time without massive developments. Most Enterprises I talk to haven’t yet even started to think IM.

Having looked at a lot of the responses, and considered a viewpoint, I have to say that MY presence isn’t yet important to me. I may be interested in someone elses, but I don’t really care that they’re present, just whether they have the time to communicate right now.

I can’t envisage me being IM’d as solving my information overload problem. Thus highlighting the big difference between seeing someone else being present, and making my own presence known. Where is the permission element?

I also can’t imagine circumstances where I would have enough time to manage the constantly changing context, relationship and profile information. Will users change their status….not me.

Simply, the most useful thing about an IM client when I see someone logged on, is that it ‘reminds’ me that I want to discuss something with them. I may or may not wish to enter into a real time discourse - often I’ll email them anyway, helping with my scheduling, which may sound like a cardinal sin to technocrats, but it’s only for a lack of sufficient information management tools…honest.

Perhaps what we really need is a conversation management tool - something that reminds us about things we have to do at an appropriate time! The inbox used to be enough as a ‘to do’ list….but no more. There are lots of point solutions, the IM box, the email inbox, the Enteprise portal, Blogs, Community Ware, RSS Readers and so forth.

My wife tells me I should be more organised - and I think being helped to plan things properly is just what is missing.