Conversationware

It’s Funny when you see someone try to recall an email.

Of course, the recall function serves only to highlight the original email to be read more closely, just to see where the rickett has been dropped, and how loud the clang was.

Another example of a terrible email mistake here at email tide

In my mind’s eye I can now see lots of Journalists flicking through a ‘deed poll’ search on google - seeing how much it would cost to change their name to Gordon Brown.

Don’t do it Jane!

There are three Matt Lambert’s in the UK around the technology field, one at Microsoft and one at a telecoms company. So, I do get voicemails from people I’ve never heard of every now and again….although nothing interesting seemlingly. But the more people you are ‘acquainted’ with, the less well you might know them, and this is going to happen more often.

In the comments in the linked article, there is a Thunderbird plugin that is designed with the ‘are you sure you want to send this’ button built in. Not bad, but possibly subject to the similar address blindness after a while.

What this highlights (again) is the fact that Email is a fairly blunt tool with which to be handling sensitive documents.

Surely there must be some enterprise 2.0 software that could handle a central repository, and sharing mechanism for messages, without overloading the user with yet more passwords. It makes you wonder if any other legal companies have gone with Google Docs for this?

Is Sharepoint the right vehicle - I’ve heard varying reports. I’ve got another Avanquest training session on this next week, perhaps it will sink in this time.

Talking of Passwords, methinks it is worth another look at OpenID again.

When I looked for free web based email, I knew Gmail was going to be the best option.

With huge amounts of storage, accessible from my various PC’s, Spam filters and desktop notifications (so I don’t have to check for new mail, which is the most important), plus Gtalk Instant Messaging on the same login - so it proved.

Thus, when I wanted to have separate ‘blog’ email, I took a look at Google Apps (it’s free, so why not).

Google Apps is Gmail, but with your own domain - (e.g. mail is sent to name@company.com) but with all the above benefits, and more. Being free, I think it’s great value, and even at the premier edition at $50 per user per year - compared to the cost of running premises based equivalents is a no brainer.

Setting it up does mean you need your own domain, and access to the control panel to follow google’s instructions in moving the Email MX records…..it’s easier than it sounds though, and knowing someone who can help is useful.

On first impressions, it was good. But last year…..

I had the problem of trying to access two separate Gmail accounts from the same machine - it turned out to be very unwieldy flicking from account to account and notifications weren’t as timely if I wasn’t logged in.

It’s amazing how the little things prevent you from using and being completely happy with software.

Recently however, Google Apps and Gmail have both moved to supporting IMAP, and my problems have been solved. It’s brilliant!

One of the most useful additional applications is Docs - great for sharing information between boundaries….accessible from anywhere. I haven’t worked out my three different calendars yet, but there are apparently synching apps available.

I’m now using Thunderbird to receive and send mail from multiple gmail accounts (as well as a separate email account for work!). I can still be logged in to my primary gmail account (personal) for most of the day.

With all the above facilities, Google Apps is aimed at companies - but I always wondered whether companies would get over the trust issue. That is, trusting Google to look after their email.

I figured for my own part that if Google let any information go, their share price would slide, and therefore they had more to lose than I did.

There is an extremely interesting article here, showing a Legal company have made exactly the same decision.

Email server, Software, support, Spam software, archiving, the list of savings just goes on.

If you don’t need to support a LAN to run documents and email (with failover support), this tends to help free up both funds and the staff from looking after it, not to mention users who can literally work anywhere with mobile broadband.

It has to be worth most small companies time in having a look at this, and if Legal companies are happy to trust their customer’s information, then that shouldn’t stop anyone.

Web 2.0 or Bubble 2.0 ?

A bit of fun being poked at the technology industry. Not before time.

Wordpress open source software used to be just for building blogs, but now its more than good enough to have your website built with.

You should.

For all my friends in small businesses, here’s my reasons.

1. Wordpress can be used to create a website from scratch with no coding (with a little reading)
2. Anyone can add pages, and this means more content, and more updates (no charge)
3. Search engines care very much about content levels and how often a site is updated.
4. Content is preserved, even when changing the look of the site (Thats what this Wordpress Content Management System actually does)
5. Change the look, and all pages are updated, there’s no hard-coding. A website can live and breathe.
6. Thousands of developers are working to simplify all sorts of advanced capability - e.g. Search Engine friendly stuff, statistics management! audio and video embedding, database and e-commerce functions.
7. If you get stuck, any Wordpress contractor can pick up where you left off - easily
8. It is a major bonus for a website to support RSS and blogs, for marketing, and with Wordpress, such rich functionality is built in of course.
9. Websites are tons better when interactive - positive customer comments build trust and credibility and will increase conversions from visits to contact.
10. It’s free to use

Forget the word Blog - just think of this as a way to replace that old website that looks like a brochure and to start a conversation in your marketplace, and hit those search engines.

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

Sorry, we were unable to find the Enterprise Library page you were looking for.  It’s possible that this page is no longer available.

The Enterprise Library provides the most current Enterprise marketing content available.

To make another Enterprise Library selection, click here

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.

RSS is abit like having your paper delivered when normally the local shop is sold out

Here is another video, this time an RSS primer to pass on to all our laggard friends and families who haven’t been playing with readers yet.

The video is pilfered from these Common Craft people.

I wanted to experiment with including a You Tube video in a post, so here it is. The one I chose to use as an example, so you may have already seen it, is a backgrounder for Web 2.0 technology. Reviews were mixed :-), but it’s relevant at least.

This is thanks to a plugin for wordpress found here. It was the plugin that I most easily understood - which is as good a reason as any to recommend it.

All I need to do now, is work out how to create and post demo videos to you tube.

Del.icio.us is so simple, the potential usefulness passes you by at first. It’s the sort of service that makes you wish you’d spent more time reading the instructions six months ago when you first signed up.

A little introduction here, if you don’t know it.

See a webpage, click a button in your browser, save it with tags, and always find it again. All that useful stuff you can’t remember where it was? Not any more…very cool.

Using a reader, and subscribing to what colleagues and family find interesting, that’s a very simple way to reduce overloaded email inboxes!

However, if there is any element of competitive intelligence involved, then why not keep it in the family and install (10 users free), bookmarking, specifically for within the company.

Cogennz collective intelligence is a British Web 2.0 product, good show, and obviously therefore a step ahead

Ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper, I have harboured visions of a telephone handset built in next to a screen, which I could pick up, anytime I wanted more information from a website owner and immediately speak to someone connected with the page. I wouldn’t have to know or enter the number.

A little more daydreaming would see the the right hunt group in the call centre or company product sales, called automatically based on the page - of course, and when they answered, a screen would come up on their CRM (remember that?), which would have the screen I was looking at, as well as my details.

There is definitely movement and services like Sitofono, are a very simple implementation of it, without the bells….well, er, it is actually the bells, and not the whistles. Click for the owner to call you.

Then, there is a quote from a product website called Contactatonce.com, who markets a solution that allows website visitors to IM, or chat, with people in the organisation in real time. An excerpt,

A sales rep for one of the ContactAtOnce! enabled car dealerships in Atlanta forwarded me a conversation he recently had with a prospect. Excerpting:

[07:00:30 PM][SalesRep] What do you think of this instant connect tool ?
[07:00:38 PM][Customer] It is really great
[07:00:52 PM][SalesRep] Good to hear, we are trying it out.
[07:00:55 PM][Customer] The only reason why I chose your dealership is because I can talk to you now
[07:01:05 PM][Customer] If not I would not even have contacted your company
[07:01:10 PM][Customer] so 1 positive for this

Sometimes, the customers say the most eloquent things…

I like this - but it is wise to let the visitors speak to you first.

For instance, with Meebo, a web based IM system that allows you to build in a client to your blog or website (it’s down there on the right hand side somewhere), you get audibly notified when someone is on your page - don’t worry, I forget to log on most days and I rarely notice in the hubbub

However, I did notice on Sunday for a change, and after about half an hour I decided to interact. At which point the visitor scarpered instantly, and who could blame them. It’s a bit like stalking in reverse isn’t it?

Imagine if you will, browsing to a website, you see a head turn, and say - “can I help you?”

I’m just looking, you say….

How ghastly can you get, if I wanted to be in a shoe shop, I’d go shopping more than once a year. Not all daydreams are worth going on with.