Enterprise 2.0

Much discussion is in progress about Enterprise 2.0 – including a large cry after “Enterprise 2.0″ was deleted from Wikipedia earlier. Here is my simple explanation of Enterprise 2.0.

Model every day enterprise users activity leveraging Web 2.0 based technologies (like Ajax, RSS, Wikis, blogs, IM, etc.) that can provide increased social interaction (like successful models of MySpace, YouTube, eBay, etc.) and enriched personal experience needed to build highly collaborative geographically distributed company/community (including employees, customers, partners, supply chain and other communities). A foundation that can help generate increase level of productivity necessary to manage both top line growth and bottom line control. Consider this along with other technology innovations (like RFID, SOA, etc.) and wider deployment choices(like SaaS, Licenced, BPO, etc.) – if anything enterprise industry is getting into some exciting time for innovation.

Enterprise 2.0 naturally enhances the current web based computing model that forces developers to think abstract application components rather than facilitating user interaction (say with your customer or salesforce) that is needed to provide the social experience of getting a task completed. BTW, this happens today although in a primitive way – today one person enters the info in a form that stores relevant data in one tableset that either a work flow or by some other trigger mechanism notifies other person who then picks the recordset from those tables; do some work; and put the modified recordset in another set of tables for another user to pick and do something about it. One can make this user interaction worse if you consider integrated legacy applications and best of breed suites in today’s IT environment – where users have to jump from one application to other hoping to find the relevent information needed to progress the work flow. Think about how this behavior of user interaction can be enhanced leveraging some of the successful and other upcoming future social interaction with the web when trying to accomplish a task.

Thre are other interesting scenarios as well that can be thought of as Enteprise 2.0 takes some shape. I can see much improvement in the CRM space to improve customer facing functionality. These new models will evolve in the time to come as technology gains wide spread adoption and as enterprise vendor catches on to capture social experince needed for them to continue to retain and grow their customer base.

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How to start blogging – attempt #2

Ah! my 2nd attempt to blogging.

I started to blog last year with lot of enthusiasm but that quickly fizzled out by the tool at my disposal for the effort it was taking bringing the site to where I wanted. Here is my earlier blog named one-enterprise. Finally I gave up. I was using Google blogger at the time.

Soon, I realized much of my struggle was with the knowledge I had about what is available on the Internet. I knew what I wanted but I picked up the blogging site based on what came first. I chose Goggle blogger as that came one of the first choice when I searched for blog sites. Blogger had nice and simple interface – hence I signed up and later realized I got stuck as it did not have tools/flexibility in what I was looking for. It took my momentum away first time. Later, I got involved with several things before generating enough momentum to take second stab at it.

This time around – I started with a set of requirement that I wanted and researched the right tool. This time – I am finding better handle on my blogging effort. Here are the requirements I laid out before signing up to a blogging site.

1. Free of cost
2. Easy to post a blog
3. Easy to add a new page to the site where I can have my non-blog stuff
4. Easy to “categorize” by blog posts and use existing “categories” where possible so that my posts also start to surface
5. Easy to make blog searchable
6. Easy to add photos and other media to a post and a site
7. Allow me choices of template that I like – 2 side bars and main page
8. Allow me to customize sidebars where I can include my choice of text, RSS feeds, Links, Counters, Search, Calendar, etc.
9. Allow me to specify choices of summary or full view and other display choices
10. Allow me to specify my blogroll
11. Provide me dashboard with relevant information, hits, pings to know how my site is being used
12. Easy to preview and tag
13. Will allow upgrade to the product version when I decide to move my blog to my own domain – although I will have to pay for it.
14. Essentially one place with a template that I like, where I can easily blog, post my non-blog stuff, RSS feeds, etc and know how the site is being used.

 After some search, I settled on WordPress. I considerd Typepad, Spaces, Blogger but so far I liked what WordPress had offered. Site allowed creation of my blog site quickly and I can configure it the way I like it. I enjoyed leveraging sidebar and putting bunch of information that I wanted. It is easy to use and got me where I wanted quickly.

Next, I also changed my RSS reader from “RSSReader” to NewsGator Online. This move turned out to be good as well. Again, I kept my criteria to keep it free for now. I consolidated all my RSS feeds – internal, external to Newsgator. Newsgator allow publishing blogroll as a Script. I am at a point where I am trying to bring my newsgator blogroll to show up at my WordPress blog.

With that said – here I am. The blog is ready and my Newsgator online feed is ready. I have consolidated much of the information that I used to fetch from various sites at one place.

I am hoping now someone will start better tagging/syndicate like-minded high quality blogs together. I still spend sometime figuring out which blog to subscribe or not. Hopefully a good syndicate network of blog can be the aggregator based on the topic and depending on the interest folks can just subscribe to those channels. Hopefully it will save people time who are trying to tune to reliable channels.

My next step – sometime, in future – would be to to bring my own domain and consolidate much of my web interaction at one place. Until then, this is where I leave my traces…

Blogging stats

Came across this list from MediaPost blog that cited various blog stats in US.

Here is an excerpt on the mubers. You can read about other numbers/details at the Media Post blog. “Thirty-nine percent of U.S. Internet users, or about 57 million Americans, read blogs; 8 percent, or about 12 million Americans, write a blog; and more than half of bloggers are under the age of 30″

Numbers are rising…

Want to make the world a better place?

I would like to know thoughts from the fellow netizens whatever field you work on (say social enterpreneurship arena or folks from sustainable development/energy industry) to suggests what can be done here. This is something near and dear to my heart so looking for ideas that can be converted at mass scale level. Here is what I am looking for:-

How to package alternative energy source (say solar energy) as an end product cheaply that can help produce electricity, heat and other energy needs for developing countries like India. Specifically targeting this to the rural India that lacks infrastructure and remains poor from affordability stand point. Some key requirements that I think are must to meet:-

1. Standalone product - not dependent on other infrastructure to be available
2. Easy to install – since we are talking mass adoption
3. Easily plugs into and works with the existing electrical wiring and fixtures, if there are any
4. Able to power up basic amenities – light bulbs, fans, etc. Basic home appliances.
5. Easy to ship/transport
6. Rugged – can sustain weather and rough/tough handling
7. Reliable life span. Remember in countries like India people usually don’t recycle stuff that easily.
8. Scalable technology/product – for mass adoption
9. Low cost of the initial product – folks can’t buy expensive product. It’ll be even hard to sell less costly alternative. Some additional thoughts need to come in to identify cooperative or other model that can help fund the cost of the product and its usage.
10. Minimal/no cost of the running product
11. Easily and cheaply maintenance for regular wear and tear (or replaced)

Any and all thoughts that can help progress the discussion are welcome.

Fragmented international market

Read this story on Forbes today titled “Software Surprise” how in China a small local enteprise software vendor “Ufida” is capturing SMB market from the likes of Oracle and SAP. Article suggests that Ufida has captured 20% of the domestic business market. It touts the benefit that local vendor knows local rules, etc. supporting easy sell of domestic developed products to the less complex customer scenarios.

Although the article heavily touts the “price” advantage local company suggests it has over the large established leaders. I am not sure, if that is what is keeping Ufida afloat. At best it can be a short term ploy as price advantage don’t sustain too long. At least not against companies like Oracle, SAP that runs on high margin and generate enough cash to compete effectively on price point – if they decide to capture the market and keep thrifty competitor away.

One sliver line that emerges out of such success story of domestic product companies is the awareness they create around software intellectual property within the country. Local success stories will bring appropriate legal practices and improve the local enforcement situation to tackle privacy and other relevant issues effectively. Thus solidifying the path for large multi-nationals to increase their penetration and provide more sophesticated solution to the diverse geopgraphical market – in some regard leveling the playfield for competition.

Colorado Gubernatorial Technology Forum – 2006

On Sept 8th, candidates for the Colorado governor race – Bob Beauprez (Republican) and Bill Ritter (Democrat) will provide their perspective on the technology landscape at Colorado. This will be a great event to hear from both the candidates on how they see the health of technology industry in Colorado.

Colorado has one of the highest concentration of technology workers. It will be good to hear what candidates have to say on how Colorado can create more successful entrepreneurs – attracting more investment and technology companies needed to keep a healthy eco system for its technology citizen.

The event will be held at Browne Place @ 11:30 AM. For more details on the event and to register visit TiE-Rockies. Event will be moderated by local VCs Jack Tankersley (Republican) and Brad Feld (Democrat).

Life is not a Zero-sum game

Tuesday on 22nd, TiE-rockies organized a speaking engagement of Ralph Peterson. Ralph is CEO of CH2M-Hill. $3.8Bn company headquartered in Colorado. The company has an outstanding growth year over year and almost been doubling every few years. One can see real hockey stick in action. Company is 100% owned by its employees. Anyway, a good company with good fundamentals and good people on-board. Also, it is hard to miss how humble and gracious person Ralph is. Kudos to him for making CH2M a good company that was is now in the Fortune Best 100 company to work for.

However, what caught my attention was Ralph’s emphasis on how life is not a zero-sum game. An interesting perspective these days where much thought prevails on the winners and how for each winner there are loosers. One doesn’t have to be a looser for others to win. Win-Win situations do exist and how one should attempt to find win-win situations. Much on non-Zero-sum and how it has shaped human destiny can be found at Robert Wright page. Ralph mentioned this book during his chat – one book that is now in my list to read soon.