Network World Fusion :: Industry leaders, academics focus on productivity
By Jennifer Mears
...The Information Work Productivity Council, created nearly two years ago by industry leaders including Microsoft, Cisco, HP and Intel, is holding its first Information Work Forum next week in New York in an effort to reach out to businesses wrestling with the best ways to step up productivity.
The invitation-only event is the first sponsored by the council that is focused on creating a framework for businesses to measure productivity stemming from information-centric technology such as e-mail, instant messaging, team workspaces, video conferencing and Web conferencing.
...John Seely Brown, author and former Chief Scientist and Palo Alto Research Center Director (PARC), Xerox, will also talk about the changing corporate IT infrastructure and how flexible, services-oriented architectures are allowing for more collaboration and, as a result, more innovation.
"The IT systems we use, the ERP systems we use, have created almost a prison for us and we cannot move very freely in that prison so any kind of innovation we want to rapidly deploy has to be squeezed into what our current IT systems and the business processes they support allow us to do," he says. "What's happening now is slowly but surely as an extension of Web Services we're starting to build service oriented architectures ... that enable us to build more loosely coupled systems. ... It enables us to innovate in ways we never could before."
Analysts are also tracking this effort to better manage the use of information-focused technology. Mike Gotta, a senior vice president at the Meta Group, for example, talks about what he calls the Knowledge Worker Infrastructure, which enables workers to use IT resources to interact with the information - and coworkers, partners and customers - they need when they need it.
"It's about people - it's how people get connected to information and processes so we can make the whole organization more productive," he says.
Efforts to create a knowledge worker infrastructure in organizations are just beginning, with pharmaceutical and high-tech manufacturing firms leading the way, Gotta says.
"By 2004, we believe only 15% of Global 2000 companies will have developed an enterprise-wide strategy for pulling together diverse KWI activities. By 2006, 50% of G2000 enterprises will have a strategic plan to address KWI needs, growing to 80% in 2008," Gotta writes in a research note on the subject...
FALLS CHURCH, Va., Jan 29. /PRNewswire/ -- EVOLVENT -- Can your organization be attacked? Before the events of September 11, most organizations might have answered, no. Since then, this message has been reinforced by intellectual property loss, natural disasters, and power outages. These events brought with it the near-universal realization that tighter network security; backup networks, increased security in knowledge management and the creation of disaster recovery architecture are absolute requirements. Securing business intelligence is the vital key to survival and success in our brave new world.
...This book offers a unique perspective on both security and the management of our knowledge resources, demonstrating through practical examples from public and private sectors how integrating security as a way of thinking can not only protect our intellectual assets, but build knowledge systems that enhance return on investments in the much maligned world of information technology.
Business Wire :: Knowledge Management: Managing Intellectual Assets Helps Reduce Costs
CHAPEL HILL, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 28, 2004--To efficiently manage intellectual assets, leading companies embed knowledge management activities in their corporate strategy. According to a study by research and consulting firm Best Practices, LLC, identifying and sharing internal best practices enables organizations to gain market position and drive long-term growth. While some companies lay off employees to cut costs in a slow economy, leading companies utilize employees' valuable knowledge to reduce expenses.
"Knowledge Management of Internal Best Practices," (summary is free with registration, full report is $1,000.00) reveals the importance of employing effective management of intellectual capital technique.
through myths and shadows
footsteps of the archetypes
fade in windblown snow
haitech haiku™
©2004 judith meskill
inspired by a post in dina mehta's weblog on jung, combined with the steady snowfall outside my window tonight...
Ultra-Powerful IBM Gateway System Speeds Up Storage Networking
ARMONK, NY -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 01/27/2004 -- IBM today introduced a powerful new storage system that uses POWER chips designed to speed shared data across clients' IT networks, while allowing clients to maximize their existing storage hardware investments.
The new IBM TotalStorage NAS Gateway 500 system uses POWER 4 microprocessors and networking software designed to help clients extract value from their existing storage infrastructures by providing a fast, reliable, common link to various locations where data resides. The product is designed to reduce the need to create islands of new storage systems that can require greater levels of administration and support.
"The new IBM TotalStorage NAS Gateway 500 is a key part of our Network Attached Storage strategy to deliver unparalleled benefits for customers who want to use gateways to access shared data faster and cheaper," said Leslie Swanson, vice president, IBM Storage Systems. "Today's data centers often share a mix between heterogeneous NAS and SAN technologies. The new gateway can help customers leverage current storage investments while reducing the manpower necessary to support them."
POWER Processing for Multiple Platform Environments
The gateway boasts some of IBM's most powerful and innovative technologies, combining IBM's proven AIX operating system with the stability and strength of IBM award-winning POWER processors. Agents for IBM Tivoli Storage Manager, Tivoli Storage Resource Manager, and Tivoli SAN Manager are included to allow customers to manage the gateway seamlessly with the rest of their storage infrastructure. POWER processors provide NAS Gateway 500 customers with powerful file transfer performance.
Built with flexibility and openness in mind, the NAS Gateway 500 is designed to provide file serving capabilities for IBM eServer systems, IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server and IBM TotalStorage FAStT products. The gateway also supports UNIX, Linux and Windows clients. When used with IBM TotalStorage SAN Volume Controller, the gateway can support storage servers from other vendors as well. As a result, clients have the flexibility to evolve their storage infrastructure as their business and technology needs change.
The IBM NAS Gateway 500 system incorporates autonomic computing technologies that monitor and maintain system performance, helping to free administrators to focus on critical business processes. Clients also have the option of employing the gateway's autonomic technology to report abnormal processes to IBM technicians for evaluation and corrective response.
The French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) -- a key player in research, development and innovation in the area of energy, defense, information technology, communication and health -- has had early success as a beta customer of the NAS Gateway 500. "After completing the early phases of our installation of the NAS Gateway 500, we are impressed with the performance and its ease of implementation," stated Philippe Bizeul, system infrastructure manager, CEA.
The IBM TotalStorage NAS Gateway 500 will become generally available through IBM and IBM Business Partners on February 6, 2004, with prices starting at $60,000.
Transform Magazine :: French Risk Institute Creates a Knowledge Portal
...The French National Institute for Industrial Environment and Risks recently began using K2 Enterprise from Verity, Sunnyvale, CA, for search and content organization on its intranet.
Founded in 1990, the institute is a multidisciplinary unit within the French Ministry of the Environment. Its mission is to assess and identify ways to prevent accidental and chronic risks to people exposed to industrial plants and chemical substances. Like many public research organizations, the institute was overwhelmed by the amount of structured and unstructured content generated and stored by its team of researchers, making it difficult for users to locate relevant information quickly and accurately. To manage, locate and evaluate its enterprise data more efficiently, the institute chose the Verity software to create a knowledge management portal...
This evening Jack Vinson's weblog bio inspired me to perform some 'news' research on current implementations of the 'Theory of Constraints.'
I found an article by Adolph A. Mitchell for DCMilitary.com on - 'E-2C cost-wise successes with praise' - explaining that squadron support has increased due to the implementation of the "Relevant Information For Leadership (RIFLe)" philosophy.
...RIFLe incorporates the Theory of Constraints, and works to alleviate the impact of bottlenecks within the operations process. By horizontally integrating stovepipe logistics, RIFLe evaluates procedures at the operational level for improvements that will employ less effort, less resources, and increased effectiveness.
"The results have been outstanding," said Cmdr. Carolynn Snyder, Point Mugu AIMD officer-in-charge. "We have a 50 percent decrease in items waiting for repair, a 75 percent decrease in due-in-from-maintenance items and our average customer wait time has decreased from eight days to one and a half days."...
The Business Journal of Phoenix :: ASU works to broaden knowledge management understanding
...ASU's Center for Advancing Business through Information Technology (CABIT), teamed with Intel more than a year ago on the Knowledge Management Capabilities Assessment project, and, over time, it has grown to more and more business units of Intel.
The project's aim is to determine how the enhancement of knowledge management capabilities in information technology can improve business performance. Knowledge management looks at the role of information technology in storing and accessing the information, ideas and experiences, which make up a company's intangible assets.
Knowledge in the case of the CABIT/Intel project means information needed to make decisions. That includes lessons learned by a company and its employees, expertise available through industry experts, as well as documented knowledge such as videos, recordings and written materials.
At the heart of this project is developing an instrument that can reflect how well a company is managing its knowledge, said Ajay Vinze, CABIT director.
"Knowledge is the biggest and most transient resource any business has," he said. "We are looking at how you manage this very complex object that exists in both minds and data."...
Steven D. Rudnik, Magnitude Founder, and Chief Executive Officer stated: "Throughout the world, knowledge-workers represent a costly and significant resource to employers of all industries. Our clients are coming to us looking for effective and innovative ways to measure that resource as an integral step in managing it. Once employers implement ErgoEnterprise(TM) and observe their own organization's knowledge-worker productivity in real-time, they quickly follow-on with exploring ways to enhance performance such as through improving the ergonomics of the knowledge-worker, thus optimizing their performance. Good ergonomics equates to good economics."
This evening, while researching material to contribute to The Social Software Weblog over at Weblogs, Inc., I stumbled upon a Forbes article - on 'Social Entrepreneurship' at the World Economic Forum. The theme of this year's forum (which is ending tomorrow, January 24, 2004, in Davos, Switzerland) is 'Partnering for Security and Prosperity.'
In the Forbes article Michael Freedman writes:
"A buzzword at this year's World Economic Forum is "social entrepreneurialism," a fuzzy term that has had some concrete benefits. The idea, says William Drayton, a graduate of Yale Law School and a former McKinsey consultant, is to seek out entrepreneurial individuals and encourage them to use their skills to help others, particularly the extremely poor and isolated. Indeed, as the group explains on its website: "Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or to teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry."
In a recent post - social (software) entrepreneurs?... - I posed the question, "Who are the 'Social Entrepreneurs' of the 'Social Software' movement?"
Dina Mehta offered Rajesh Jain of E M E R G I C; Valdis Krebs nominated June Holley of ACEnet; J.C. Winnie offers Joi Ito of Neoteny; and Flemming Funch, on his Ming the Mechanic weblog, offers himself.
The World Economic Forum chose 30 Tech Pioneers for 2004 and is celebrating their "Social Entrepreneurialism" at the event being held in Davos, Switzerland.
This left me pondering: Do we have an innovative 'Social Software' solution that would 'qualify' for the 'Selection Process' set out by the World Economic Forum for next year's 'Tech Pioneers' category? Who is the 'Social Software' pioneer who can take us there?
Chorus Systems Selected to Present its Systems Management Solution at Venture 2004 Conference
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Jan. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Chorus Systems, developer of Uptime, a leading-edge autonomic problem analysis and remediation software solution, announced today that it has been selected as a presenting company at the Venture 2004 Conference sponsored by the Council for Entrepreneurial Development. Chorus Systems was one of 7 additional companies selected to present at the Conference on April 27-28, 2004. During the first selection round in December 2003, CED chose six other innovation-based companies from North Carolina.
"We've developed a solution that can collect and assimilate a tremendous volume of systems data and boil it down to straight-forward actions that represent real savings in problem management time and cost -- all with zero impact to end users," says Sirus Chitsaz, CEO of Chorus Systems.
"Chorus Systems is an interesting young company combining a wide range of advanced technologies in creating an innovative new approach to automating support for PCs and Servers," says David Gilroy, Partner at Wakefield Group.
The final application deadline for other companies interested in presenting at Venture 2004 is Jan. 31. The Venture 2004 Selection Committee, chaired by Mike Elliott of the Wakefield Group, is seeking high growth North Carolina-based companies from an array of industries that are looking to raise either initial or subsequent rounds of professional equity capital.
Venture 2004, scheduled for April 27-28 at The Friday Center in Chapel Hill, NC, is the Southeast's premier venture financing conference. Presented by CED with support from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School and the National Venture Capital Association, Venture 2004 will continue a 21-year tradition of showcasing North Carolina's hottest investment opportunities to hundreds of venture capitalists and financiers from throughout the United States. Since 1999, Venture presenters have raised over $1.5 billion in venture capital. In addition to company presentations, CED's Venture 2004 will include leading industry speakers, extensive networking opportunities and exclusive investor-only events.
To the The Social Software Weblog - socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com.... See you there... (^:
Debra Saunders writes a piece for the San Francisco Chronicle - 'Let Judy be Judith,' about Dr. Judith Steinberg Dean, Howard Dean's wife. Judith is certainly 'notable' as she endeavors to lead an honest, dedicated life as a mother, physician, and wife.
Debra writes:
"...it was appealing that Howard Dean spared his wife from the ordeals of the campaign. For one thing, the fact that Dean married a politico-phobe -- she only attended two of four inaugural balls when he was Vermont's governor -- was proof he hadn't intended to run for the White House since childhood. Mrs. D's absence also showed that her husband respected his wife for who she is. It spoke well of the marriage that he didn't try to change her.
In fact, the nicest thing Howard Dean said through this whole messy race was: "Her goal is to be a good doctor and a good mom, and I think that is a pretty good goal. I do not intend to drag her around because I think I need her as a prop on the campaign trail."
Until Dean used Steinberg as a prop Sunday, there was reason to believe that there were things Howard Dean would not stoop to in order to win the election...'
WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The George Washington University and BearingPoint, Inc. (NYSE: BE - News), one of the world's largest business consulting and systems integration firms, today launched the Center for Innovation in Public Service, a joint initiative aimed at empowering government leaders so they are better able to address the complex challenges involved in 21st century public sector governance. The center will be housed in GW's School of Public Policy and Public Administration.
The center will publish independent research, white papers and case studies, and provide information exchange forums for leaders and managers in public and nonprofit organizations. In addition, it plans to host online knowledge management communities, including research archives, online discussion forums, news and events information and a host of other tools.
"This is going to be a terrific addition to our academic community," said Donald R. Lehman, GW executive vice president for academic affairs. "The center joins a family of innovative, highly respected research units that make GW and the School of Public Policy and Public Administration a focal point for public affairs education and public service."
The Center for Innovation in Public Service will provide research and education opportunities allowing faculty of GW's School of Public Policy and Public Administration to collaborate with thought leaders from the private and public sector. The center also will enable GW to provide unique experiences for students, such as mentoring, research assistantships, internships and career development opportunities.
"At the heart of this organization is unprecedented collaboration among the best minds from government, academia, business and nonprofits," said Rich Roberts, executive vice president of the public services line of business at BearingPoint. "By sharing the insights gained through collaboration, the center will consider practical, yet innovative methods to address the most pressing challenges in the public sector. We're delighted to be teaming with GW on this exciting endeavor."
Computerworld | Microsoft seeks its next cash cow
by John Fontana, Network World
...To the tune of US$1.6 billion in fiscal year 2003, Microsoft bled money from its Business Solutions, Mobile and Embedded Devices, MSN, and Home and Entertainment divisions.
...Despite the losses, Microsoft's competitors recognize these business units as slumbering giants. They are not only coddled by a cash reserve of $51 billion but with a thirst to become Microsoft's new growth business now that traditional cash cows - client operating systems and the Office suite - have matured.
...The rewards, risks and challenges are epitomized in Microsoft's $10 billion dream for its Business Solutions group, which produces ERP, CRM and other applications to automate business functions for small and midsize businesses (SMB), which Microsoft defines as those with 1,000 or less employees.
...Microsoft CRM works with Office's Outlook, and the company is working to marry its "knowledge worker" collaboration products with business-productivity applications.
Also on tap is Project Green, an initiative to replace Great Plains, Navision and Microsoft CRM with applications built on a single code base that depends on Microsoft's dizzying lineup of Longhorn branded clients, servers and development tools slated to start shipping in 2006...
Computing Canada provides coverage of a roundtable discussion on strategic industry developments of 2003 in: Taking The Industry's Pulse.
A member of this 'roundtable' is one Robert Garigue, chief information security officer, Bank of Montreal. Deep into discussing the answer to a 'Computing Canada' question on "Ensuring a healthy return on technology investments" while substantiating "the ongoing nature of the security spend," Garigue offers:
"You realize you have lots of people, but a couple of them are critical single points of knowledge. That's not good enough anymore. You have to have that knowledge available; it has to be institutionalized, and it can't be just in one individual; it has to be in the team. How do you identify single points of knowledge? When was the last time an audit was done around individuals who are single points of knowledge? We've done that review; we found 47 people that have single points of knowledge and we're putting in place a whole management structure to make sure we're addressing that as part of the HR process, not as part of the security or business continuity process."
Single points of knowledge? Or single points of failure? Or both? Have you taken the 'pulse' of your institutional memory lately?
Earlier today a friend of mine from the Bay Area and I were having a conversation about the current state of our 'knowledge economy.' He brought to my attention the SFGate article below on the increasing surge of 'knowledge worker' jobs to overseas markets. What caught his eye in this article was the quote:
"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore," HP chief Carly Fiorina said. "We have to compete for jobs."
To which my friend offered, that he thought it rather noble of Carly to suggest that she and other USA C-level executives should have to compete for their jobs with offshore executives who would most likely work for millions less in annual pay. This would indeed save the USA job market a good deal of money - perhaps enough to re-employ a few million of the out-of-work non-'C'-level workforce... (^:
SFGate :: Backlash brews as executives keep shifting white-collar jobs overseas
RACHEL KONRAD, AP Business Writer
...Executives say transferring highly paid, highly skilled jobs to foreigners allows companies to engineer products inexpensively and lets Americans focus on emerging fields such as nanotechnology. The average American programmer commands $60 an hour; in India the rate is roughly one-sixth of that.
Proponents also say outsourcing develops work forces -- and in turn, consumers with buying power -- in fast-growing markets such as China, India and Russia.
Despite that daunting economic logic, outsourcing opponents say they hope to educate the public about the true cost of globalization.
"People are tired of everything being based upon the bottom line, where companies are getting richer and everyone else is losing out," said Marcus Courtney, organizer of the Seattle-based Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, which has 370 dues-paying members and 16,000 people on a free electronic mailing list...
DCMilitary.com :: Officials find illegal file sharers at Myer, McNair
by Chris Walz, Pentagram staff writer
...Peer-to-peer file sharing programs, such as KaZaA and LimeWire, continue to plague computer systems inside the Fort Myer Military Community and Arlington National Cemetery. The National Capital Region Directorate of Information Management recently evaluated the computer network and discovered approximately 424 computers contained peer-to-peer programs banned by Army regulations. ... the music industry could sue the Army. ... file sharing programs are a major liability because "Army employees are using Army equipment" to steal copyrighted material.
Information Management is trying to solve the problem as quickly as possible. The directorate is preparing to install an Intrusion Prevention System, which will recognize and forbid such network traffic. The system will isolate the computer downloading or uploading copyrighted material and then administrators will report the offender to commanders for disciplinary action...
Today Computerworld has a story by Carol Sliwa in which 'Sears CEO Alan Lacy sings praises of offshore outsourcing.' I am including a series of quotes from Alan Lacy that first left me speechless, and then left me pondering - what is left of Mr. Lacy's organization after manufacturing, customer support, financial systems, administrative support, human resources, and other 'knowledge worker' functions are outsourced to "smarter" shores?
...quote...
...I think that the fact that we now have potentially the ability to outsource to people who this is their business, they're going to have an incentive -- because it is their business to keep more state-of-the-art in terms of the quality of the financial systems, the HR systems and so on. I think that to some degree, just the nature of IT spending is that we have scarce resources in IT. Resources being scarce is going to lead to, I think, acceleration of outsourcing for some of the more administrative-like functions.
"But I think, beyond that, to me, a very interesting trend right now is the whole non-U.S. opportunity that's available, and ... if you think about personal intelligence and drive being randomly distributed by population -- you know, there are four or five times as many smart, driven people in China than there are in the U.S. And there's another four or five, three or four times as many people in India that are smarter or as smart or have more drive. And if technology is now going to basically reduce location as a barrier to competition, then essentially you've got something like whatever that was, seven or nine times, more smart, committed people that are now competing in this marketplace against certain activities.
"So, I think that the outsourcing potential -- particularly of some of the more commodity-like knowledge worker activities -- we're just beginning to see the first of that curve. I think that, just given the nature of technology and given the nature of those workforces, and given the fact that we've had a decrease in the supply, prices are going to fall.
"So we're going to see, I think, this huge incentive to shift some of these more commodity-like, knowledge worker jobs offshore."...
...end quote...
The 'Navy newsstand' released a story today titled 'DoN eBusiness Operations Office Announces First Round of FY 2004 Pilot Projects.' The Navy's eBusiness Operations Office has announced $3.8 million in funding for its first portfolio of fiscal year 2004 eBusiness pilot projects.
There are six 'pilot projects' and among their ranks is a 'knowledge management' project:
Navy Public Affairs Knowledge Management System (Navy PA KM): Navy PA KM will deploy an integrated suite of knowledge management and collaboration tools on the Web to provide public affairs officers (PAOs) around the globe with the capability to publish timely news updates to Navy leadership, Navy personnel and the public sector. The re-engineered business process will facilitate better collaboration among PAOs to provide products and resources to a larger customer base.
Contra Costa Times :: Bay Area slips in productivity
...The soaring costs of living and doing business have begun to sap the Bay Area's competitive edge, even though it has the nation's most productive and skilled workers, a study released today warns.
...Rising home prices, soaring premiums for workers' compensation, stubbornly high electricity costs and lengthening commutes have all eroded the Bay Area's ability to compete in the national and global marketplace, the McKinsey & Co. study suggests (this study titled - Downturn and Recovery: Restoring Prosperity - is available in 'PDF' format on: Bay Area Economic Forum Publications.)
..."We are morphing into something new," Van Dyke, an economist with the Berkeley-based Rosen Consulting Group, said. "The Bay Area will increasingly be a center where high-value knowledge work is done, and not an area where we put things together. We have to encourage startups, idea work, the intersection between hard technology and biosciences. That's the wave of the future."...
Brendan Pereira of The Straits Times reports 'Abdullah lays out his economic vision.' "He promised to lower the cost of doing business, spark a revolution in the education system and drive home the mantra of competitiveness to Malaysian businesses. Missing were diatribes against globalisation or a rosy analysis of the road ahead. In their place was a straightforward assessment that Malaysia needed to transform itself into a knowledge-based economy."
Today, in 'The Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area,' "NCEITA said North Carolina's public schools from kindergarten through high school are seen as lacking and are a hindrance to attracting employees and knowledge-based companies to the state. The association also pointed out that the North Carolina community college system is leading the way in "retraining" workers from a manufacturing-based economy to a knowledge-based economy, but that continuing budget cuts are undermining the community colleges."
The Korea Herald has a story on the 'NCA spearheading digitization.' "Last year, the United Nations ranked Korea 13th in an e-government evaluation of its 191 member states... "The NCA (National Computerization Agency) is led by the best minds in Korea who are devoted to creating a world-class knowledge economy," Suh Sam-young, president of NCA said. The organization's budget has also grown in tandem with the larger work force and greater tasks from 3.2 billion won in 1987 to more than 500 billion won by 1999."
In India's Financial Express, Union minister for information technology and communications, Arun Shourie 'Prescribes A Three-pronged Strategy To Boost Ties In ICT' (Information, Communication and Technology.) "Asia is becoming a powerhouse of the knowledge economy and significant parts of ICT gains elsewhere in the world is fueled by devices manufactured in Asia," he added.
Reported on iBerkshires.com for the USA, 'Higher education incentive, vocational course legislation approved by legislative committee,' and is sponsored by State Representative Peter J. Larkin, who serves as assistant vice-chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. "This legislation would permit for-credit vocationally-oriented courses to be treated in the same way that not-for-credit programs are currently treated," Larkin noted. "Our state matching grants for this program should go towards those courses that provide people with the credentials that they need to get jobs in the knowledge economy of the 21st Century."
In AME Info Business News for the United Arab Emirates, 'Business Software Alliance supports e-Literacy drive in the Middle East.' "The UAE's leadership position in knowledge economy is widely acknowledged today. The government's efforts in this direction have already shown excellent results, in the form of several successful projects including Dubai e-Government and Dubai Internet City," said Jawad Al Redha, Co-chairman, BSA Middle East.
In Great Britain, Larry Elliott writes for the Guardian Unlimited about 'Why we shouldn't just be topping up the number of graduates.' "The government is in a fine old mess over top-up fees. Students are unhappy, universities are unhappy, Labour backbenchers are unhappy. Concessions offered to prevent a Commons defeat mean the proposals are now hideously complicated, but still may not be enough to buy off the rebels... ministers are sticking to their guns. There is, they insist, no alternative if we are to expand higher education so that Britain can be at the cutting edge of the knowledge economy. Strangely, given all the fuss over top-up fees, this assumption has gone almost unquestioned."
And in Scoop, the New Zealand Government announces 'New video-conferencing service for schools.' "Broadband is the infrastructure for the knowledge economy, delivering the high speed Internet access critical to improving our educational and economic outcomes. Broadband is as important to the modern world as roads and railways were in opening up opportunities for previous generations. High-speed internet will ensure New Zealand can continue to move forward as an innovative and thriving knowledge society - a key goal of this government."
John McTernan writes a reflective piece for 'The Scotsman' - Building on devolution.
In this article John asks three questions about Scotland, the third of which I am quoting:
"what now forms our identity? Underlying the nationalist analysis is an assumption that modern identity is still bound up with a nineteenth century notion of the nation state: my country, right or wrong. That certainly seems to fit most Scots over thirty, amongst many of whom there can be no greater sin than to support England in a World Cup. But for the younger, rising generations identity seems to be far more fluid. On the one hand globalisation of brands, music and entertainment offers a range of public identities by affinity. On the other, new forms of communication - the internet and mobile phones - create new identities along community of interest and these transcend territorial boundaries. The knowledge economy is sometimes described as the weightless economy because work which is digitised can be instantly transmitted globally. In parallel, a form of weightless identity is becoming established. There are still clear territorial loyalties, even amongst younger people. Increasingly, however, these are to sub-national localities, predominantly to cities."
While performing a 'social software' search last evening, I found a paper that was written five years ago on 'business' and 'social' entrepreneurship.
J. Gregory Dees published this paper, on Social Entrepreneurship, for The Stanford Business School's Center for Social Innovation. At that time he was the Entrepreneur in Residence, Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and Miriam and Peter Haas Centennial Professor in Public Service, Graduate School of Business Stanford University. Currently Professor Dees is with Duke's Fuqua School of Business.
In this paper Professor Dees gives a brief history of the evolving definition of 'entrepreneur':
early 19th century French Economist, Jean-Baptiste Say: "The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield."
early 20th century economist Joseph Schumpeter: "the function of entrepreneurs is to reform or revolutionize the pattern of production." They can do this in many ways: "by exploiting an invention or, more generally, an untried technological possibility for producing a new commodity or producing an old one in a new way, by opening up a new source of supply of materials or a new outlet for products, by reorganizing an industry and so on."
Peter Drucker: "the entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity." Dees goes on to interpret Drucker's definition as: "Entrepreneurs have a mind-set that sees the possibilities rather than the problems created by change."
Howard H. Stevenson, a leading theorist of entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School, defines the heart of entrepreneurial management as "the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled."
Professor Dees - borrowing "the notions of value creation from Say, innovation and change agents from Schumpeter, pursuit of opportunity from Drucker, and resourcefulness from Stevenson" - asserts that 'social entrepreneurs' play the role of change agents by:
* Adopting a mission to create and sustain social value (not just private value),
* Recognizing and relentlessly pursuing new opportunities to serve that mission,
* Engaging in a process of continuous innovation, adaptation, and learning,
* Acting boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand, and
* Exhibiting a heightened sense of accountability to the constituencies served and for the outcomes created.
In conclusion Dees states:
"Social entrepreneurship describes a set of behaviors that are exceptional. These behaviors should be encouraged and rewarded in those who have the capabilities and temperament for this kind of work. We could use many more of them. Should everyone aspire to be a social entrepreneur? No. Not every social sector leader is well suited to being entrepreneurial. The same is true in business. Not every business leader is an entrepreneur in the sense that Say, Schumpeter, Drucker, and Stevenson had in mind. While we might wish for more entrepreneurial behavior in both sectors, society has a need for different leadership types and styles. Social entrepreneurs are one special breed of leader, and they should be recognized as such. This definition preserves their distinctive status and assures that social entrepreneurship is not treated lightly. We need social entrepreneurs to help us find new avenues toward social improvement as we enter the next century."
Based on Professor Dees definitions, both borrowed and advanced, of 'Social Entrepreneurship' - Who do you think are the 'Social Entrepreneurs' of the 'Social Software' movement?
Silicon Valley Biz Ink :: The voice of the valley economy
BAYVILLE, N.J., Jan. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- InterMedia Inc. (DE), the creators
and owners of RateOrDate.com, announced today that they have listed their
website RateOrDate for sale on eBay. The owner and CEO of
InterMedia Inc., Jay Gould, recently expanded the company by creating a sister
company SocialTree Inc., which will focus their efforts on the recent and
highly financed online social networking industry.
Rick Luhmann, in an article for CMP Media's Communications Convergence, reflects on his personal 'Misadventures in Viral Marketing.'
In a humorous attempt to emulate Morley Safer's depiction of 'semi-super-models' enticing young consumers into 'brand' adoption - in a '60 Minutes' segment on the topic of 'Viral Marketing' - Rick Luhmann contrives an exercise in his own workplace to draw the attention of knowledge workers to the brilliance of an 'Outlook-integrated softphone' on his wireless laptop. His experiment fails miserably with both knowledge workers and marketing types alike.
While there are those of us who are definitely ignited by the promise of improved collaboration through 'IP Telephony' and the associated moves from closed to open systems and from separate to 'converged communications' - Rick points out that the 'phone revolution' thing happened "a long, long time ago."
In conclusion he muses: "I see the process of converged communications as being more evolutionary than revolutionary, oozing slowly over time as new equipment and cost savings put the platforms in place to actually host the next-gen applications whether businesses like it or not."
On Internet.com, Susan Kuchinskas writes: 'KANA Customers Connected at the Hipbone.'
Kana - a CRM vendor whose services I first utilized almost seven years ago (before they acquired and assimilated 'Silknet' whose products I also utilized) - currently provides knowledge management, e-mail marketing, customer contact center operations, marketing and analytics applications, while Hipbone enables live chat, co-browsing and file sharing.
e-consultancy.com :: Nielsen-NetRatings - How The Internet Has Changed Our Life
...Amazon
Despite some wild predictions, books themselves are much the same now as they were five years ago. But Amazon earns a place on this list for the way it sells them - Amazon, and other successful e-commerce ventures like lastminute.com, have pioneered personalised selling, and sell hundreds of thousands of items through customised newsletters and recommendations schemes.
What's next? This kind of "Social Software" is likely to become more sophisticated, so interactivity will be an even bigger selling point and sales driver than it is now.
Friends Reunited
If there's one site that changed the perception of the Internet in the UK, it's Friends Reunited. The Internet was suddenly no longer a geek's playground - normal people used it too, and not just any normal people: the people who you went to school with. The hugely successful formula has been used in most other countries too, and may be said to have paved the way for the wider acceptance of online dating and matchmaking services.
What's next? The idea of meeting people through the Internet is mainstream now and likely to stay that way...
Brent Schlender writes an article for Fortune in which 'Peter Drucker Sets Us Straight.' The following is a excerpt from that article, the balance is available by 'subscription' to Fortune's online service.
...You can always count on Peter Drucker to provide a new way of looking at things. After all, he is the man who first recognized that management is a discipline worthy of deep and formal study. Long before anyone else - in the early 1950s, no less - he predicted how computer technology would one day thoroughly transform business. In 1961 he presciently called attention to the rise of Japan as an industrial power, and two decades later he warned of its impending economic stagnation. And we can thank him for coining the concepts of "privatization," "knowledge workers," and "management by objective."
At 94, Drucker is still full of insights that seem to elude others, and he is as opinionated as ever. His interests range from economics to psychology to philosophy to opera to Japanese art; his experiences include consulting with literally hundreds of companies, governments, small businesses, churches, universities, hospitals, arts organizations, and charities. To this day, leaders of all stripes make the pilgrimage to California to learn from the master, who continues to lecture at the management school that bears his name at Claremont Graduate University...
InternetNews :: BitTorrent, 'Gi-Fi,' and Other Trends in 2004
by Ryan Naraine
Blogging on Steroids
...If you were caught off guard by the wild popularity of blogs (define) in 2003, wait till you see what 2004 has in store. The next wave could be dubbed blogging-on-steroids -- as blogging technology is merged with wikis (blogging "best-practices" sites) (define) and integrated into social networks (the Friendsters of the world) to create a truly-connected world of online journals, Web collaboration and personals networking.
Researchers at Microsoft are already testing a networking tool called Wallop to explore how people share media and build conversations in the context of social networks. The word around the industry is that Google will hook its Blogger software to a Friendster-type network (via an acquisition?) to tap into the ever-more-connected, open-standard-driven computing world.
In 2004, the evolution of the weblog/wiki/personal network will make a huge impact in the way information is shared on the Internet. Doubters need just look at the way the heavyweight politicians have embraced blogging to take advantage of the conversational nature of the technology...
Military Information Technology :: Collaboration Through Technology
By Chris Watson
...In 1999, Congress instructed the Department of Defense and the intelligence community to address the lack of interoperability between fielded collaboration tools. The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the Joint Staff (JS) established a Collaboration Tiger Team (CTT), composed of members from the combatant commanders (unified commands) and agencies, with a twofold mission: develop a strategy for implementing collaboration tools throughout DoD, and define and validate a prioritized list of functional requirements for DoD collaboration tools.
The OSD/JS CTT asked the Joint Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) Battle Center (JBC) to conduct operational assessments of five DoD collaboration tools, focusing on the Joint Task Force requirements, and providing a recommendation satisfying an interim collaboration standard (18 to 24 month solution).
In September 2000, the JBC briefed the OSD/JS Collaboration Planning Tools Senior Steering Group, recommending the Collaboration Tool Suite (CTS) as the tool that best supported interim DoD collaboration user requirements. Following additional recommendations provided by the JBC in March 2001, the CTS was renamed the Defense Collaboration Tool Suite (DCTS).
Set of Open Standards
DCTS is an integrated suite of collaboration tools developed to support the mission planning process via voice and video conferencing, document and application sharing, chat, whiteboard capability and virtual workspace sharing. It is not a single product, but rather an evolving set of open standards within which standards-based products can interoperate. It is a client/server system consisting of client workstations connected via a network to a suite of centralized servers.
The client applications manage all local data processing, user interface and data export to other client-based commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software. The servers respond to internal and external client requests for data and manage and maintain the centralized data.
The current DCTS Version 2.0, Phase I, configuration is a fully featured suite of collaboration tools consisting of many parts, including:
Microsoft NetMeeting - provides Windows users with multi-point data conferencing, text chat, whiteboard and file transfer, as well as point-to-point audio and video.
Asynchrony Envoke - a government-off-the-shelf (GOTS)/COTS software application providing users of different systems awareness or presence of other users, spaces and meetings.
Sun Microsystems SunForum - provides shared applications and conferencing for PC and UNIX operating systems.
Digital Dash Server - a GOTS integration effort to provide space-based integrated collaboration services built on Microsoft Digital Dashboard technology. Services include space navigation, awareness, shared file space, access control, VTC conference joins, broadcast messages and system administration services.
First Virtual Communications MultiPoint Control Unit (MCU) - a COTS software application service enabling multipoint NetMeeting sessions.
Microsoft SQL Server - a complete database and analysis offering for rapidly delivering the next generation of scalable e-commerce, line-of-business and data warehousing solutions.
...The DCTS standard suite and several certified collaboration tools were deployed during contingency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq in support of deliberate and crisis action planning...
The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer :: FusionNet puts soldiers, equipment in place
By Justin Willett
..."Eighty-five percent of an organization's knowledge is stored in the peoples' ... heads."
Though the Army has tried to deal with this problem through the use of tools such as "leader books" and "continuity books," Warner said automating information would make institutional knowledge more accessible.
"For example, deployment is a big deal," Warner said. "What if the NCO who was the unit's 'deployment expert' had transferred to another post?"
The answer: With FusionNet any soldier with proper clearance and training could step into the situation and have access to the information and tools needed to plan and execute a successful deployment. A concept paper titled FusionNet at War says it would be easy to implement.
The system could run on already existing notebook and desktop computers, and training soldiers to use the system would take only 15 minutes to two hours, depending on the complexity of the user's role.
Warner said installing FusionNet on existing computers would be analogous to installing a new release of the Microsoft Office system, but far more beneficial.
"We're on the path to show the Department of Defense and Department of the Army that this can be done relatively easy and relatively inexpensively," Warner said...