• Are You Ready for Social + Mobile + Big Data + Cloud?
    [May 3, 2013] Those who had the opportunity to attend the 2013 IDC Directions conference saw IDC Senior Vice President & Chief Analyst, Frank Gens, talk about how business technology is migrating to the 3rd Platform. He defined this 3rd platform as the intersection of mobile, social, big data and cloud. He predicted that these technologies will change [...]
  • JackBe Enables Business Intelligence to be More Accessible and Robust with Recent Moves
    [April 2, 2013] I have covered JackBe for a number of years and like their evolution from a mashup engine to making use of this capability for bringing business intelligence to the average business user (see for example, JackBe Expands Real-Time Operational Intelligence with its New Offering and JackBe Presto Provides Self-Service Business Intelligence on a Mobile Basis). [...]
  • Can you answer the question everyone is asking? WTF — What is the future of business?
    [March 12, 2013] Today’s leading companies are already becoming obsolete. Fortunately or unfortunately, they won’t know until it’s too late. In 10 years, 40% of the Fortune 500 was replaced. Irrelevance is only accelerating. It’s Digital Darwinism out here. #AdaptorDie!
  • What Is Big Data?
    [February 19, 2013] Big Data… the buzz word is flying around all over the Internet, but have you ever asked yourself what the heck is big data exactly? Geospatial pros have worked with “big” data products forever it seems, however, all of a sudden data has apparently gotten very big! So, what is Big Data? Esri has tackled [...]
  • The Multi-Screen Employee Experience
    [January 23, 2013] Multi-screen experiences are crucial but they aren’t just for the consumer that has his tablet open while watching TV. The multi-screen experience is just as important for employees within organizations and is a necessity for the future of work. Let’s take at a realistic scenario:
  • The Most Common Types of IT Resistance To Enterprise Collaboration and How to Deal With It
    [December 11, 2012] Based on a research report Chess Media Group released last year on the State of Enterprise 2.0 Collaboration, the most common types of IT resistance to collaboration are: it's not a priority, there are security issues or threats, no manpower, and no budget. Let's take a look at each one in more detail and explore how to deal with them when they come up.
  • Wrike Provides Mobile Project Management
    [November 19, 2012] Many studies are showing the rise of mobile computing on both tablets and smart phones. For example, Forrester reports that by 2016, 375 million tablets will be sold globally and 760 million will be in use. In comparison it took PCs 20 years to reach that install base. Now 81 percent of firms expect to support tablets for employees. IBM projects that the revenue from this mobile commerce should rise to $31 billion by 2016. Wrike's own survey found that 80% of people work remotely at least a couple of hours per week.
  • Can You Create a Collaborative Organization Without Technology?
    [October 30, 2012] Is it possible to change behaviors or to build a collaborative organization without technology? Think about that for a moment before you answer.
  • Picking the Right Collaboration Vendor Can Help You Avoid Wasting Time and Money
    [October 2, 2012] There’s a bit of an unsettling trend that I’m starting to pick up on more frequently these days. That trend is some organizations are wanting to switch collaboration vendors. I typically get at least 1-2 emails or phone calls on this every week and they typically start with “we deployed vendor XYZ and they are just not right for us.” To which I immediately reply with “why did you deploy them? Let’s go over your use cases and feature requirements.” Then…silence.
  • IBM Picks Up Kenexa To Enhance Social Business Initiatives
    [September 11, 2012] IBM has acquired Kenexa in a cash transaction for around $1.3 billion. I know about a bit about Kenexa as they acquired OutStart, a company that provides learning, mobile, and social media services. I helped Outstart with their blog for about a year prior to the Kenexa acquisition in January of this year.
  • Beware: BYOA May Rival BYOD as IT Issue
    [August 21, 2012] There has been a lot of discussion about the BYOD movement (Bring Your Own Device) where people are getting their own smart phone and/or tablet. Well, I think the complementary to that may be just as big. This opinion is not based on any research, just a number of conversations I have had recently. ?Now I am certainly not claiming to be the first to raise the issue of people bypassing IT to use apps from the consumer Web or elsewhere, I am just suggesting a label to help focus the issue and put it parallel to BYOD. I Googled it and did not find anything. So maybe you first heard the term here?
  • Google Chrome Gaining In Popularity
    [August 7, 2012] Google Chrome is immensely popular with its browser market share constantly rising each month. After beating out Internet Explorer back in May, it has been on a slow rise to world domination since. After a successful July, Chrome is now a third of the way toward that goal.
  • Social Business – Where Ideas Keep Fighting Hierarchy
    [July 24, 2012] If you have been reading this blog for a while now, you would know how one of my favourite terms / concepts around Social Business that I have grown to become rather fond of over time, to the point where not only do I talk about it on a regular basis, but I also wear it extensively, is that one of Wirearchy ("Redarquia" in Spanish, for those who may be wondering?), that my good friend Jon Husband coined a few years back and that, still today, in 2012, is now more accurate than ever. In case you may not have heard about that concept just yet, allow me to offer over here Jon's description of it, as an introduction of what the workplace of the future will be all about? starting today: networks and communities, vs. traditional hierarchies and rigid structures, getting work done.
  • Google Maps API Luminaries Serve Some Golden Eggs of Developer Help
    [July 3, 2012] Since the Google Maps API became available for developers with a cartographical itch, digital cartographers have been putting their imaginations to impressive use with the designs they've come up with. One of the most prominent themes during the Google I/O conference last week was the sheer girth of new tools and features that were announced across the many, many Google products. Several of those features pertained to Google Maps and Google Earth, mostly on the design front.
  • Google Launches PageSpeed Insights Version 2
    [June 13, 2012] Google has released a new version of PageSpeed Insights, its Chrome extension that analyzes site performance.
  • Google Changing Up Its Field Trials Infrastructure
    [May 29, 2012] Google Chrome, like Mozilla Firefox, is a browser that's built by the community. Sure, Google is the one that pushes out the updates, but it's the community that is breaking and fixing the browser on a constant basis to make it better. Google has some nice changes for those developers that help make Chrome the browser that it is.
  • Want To Tell Google How To Improve? Tell Amit Singhal.
    [May 15, 2012] Matt Cutts fields a whole lot of questions about Google. He often offers helpful advice via his blog, comments on other blogs, Twitter, and of course through his Webmaster Help videos, but Google Fellow Amit Singhal is the guy that leads the team that looks at all the messed up search results.
  • What You Need To Know About Google’s Penguin Update
    [May 1, 2012] There are a number of reasons your site might have been hit by Google's recent Penguin update (formerly known as the Webspam update). Barring any unintended penalties, the algorithm has wiped out sites engaging in webspam and black hat SEO tactics. In other words, Google has targeted any site that is violating its quality guidelines.
  • New Interface Coming For Google?s Chrome OS
    [April 10, 2012] Google's Chrome OS may be getting makeover that will make it look more like, well, an OS. The latest developer version of the web-based operating system contains code for Aura, a redesigned user interface. Aura provides desktop and window management system much like what you find in Windows or OS X.
  • Emergent Collaboration Vendor Review: Telligent
    [March 6, 2012] This week I'm taking at look at Telligent which has been in business for around 8 years and is headquartered in Dallas Texas with offices in Seattle, Chicago, Paris, and Australia. Telligent has taken one round of funding thus far and has had profitable quarter. I spoke with Wendy Gibson the CMO and Rob Howard, the CTO and co-founder. Telligent describes themselves as "social community software for the enterprise."

  • Emergent Collaboration Vendor Review: HyperOffice
    [February 21, 2012] This week I'm taking at look at HyperOffice which has been in the business of cloud based business applications for the past seven years. HyperOffice is headquartered in Rockville, Maryland and currently has around 30 employees. It is privately funded and profitable. I spoke with the co-founder Farzin Arsanjani and Ross Savage (although I was never given his formal role or title).
  • JackBe Presto Provides Self-Service Business Intelligence on a Mobile Basis
    [February 1, 2012] I have writtten about JackBe several times over the past few years and watched their evolution from a mashup provider to using their technology to support a new wave of business intelligence (see for example, JackBe's Presto provides Real-Time Intelligence with a Focus on the Business User). What originally started as an enterprise mashup platform has now evolved into a real-time business intelligence platform that connects directly to live data sources and delivers information through Enterprise Apps and Dashboards as needed by business users. I recently spoke with Chris Warner, VP of Marketing and John Crupi, their CTO, about their latest release of Presto which focused on smartphone and tablet users.
  • Connectivity Does Not Mean Availability
    [January 4, 2012] Not too long ago your workday started when you arrived at work and ended when you left work. Then, overtime, as new forms of communication were introduced and implemented in the workplace work started to play a more central role in our lives. Work was no longer about when you got to work and left work it became about when you could be reached. Now thanks to the web, email, phone, and other technologies we can be reached anywhere at anytime, but this is a double-edged-sword.
  • How is Mobile Supported on the Enterprise Level?
    [December 6, 2011] The rise of mobile communications is one of the major game changes in technology.  The amount of time spent on mobile apps has surpassed web browsing on a computer. There are 5.3 billion mobile subscribers (77% of the world population) and mobile devices have overtaken computers on Wi-Fi networks. Given these numbers, how are enterprise IT departments supporting their mobile users?
  • Socialtext Continues to Focus on Workplace Integration
    [October 25, 2011] I have admired the capabilities within Socialtext for some time. It was one of the early enterprise 2.0 providers, well before the term was coined. They began with a wiki base and have added capability over time to build a comprehensive platform. A couple of years ago they added Socialtext Signals, one of the first enterprise micro-blogging tools. A wrote about them a year ago on this blog (see Socialtext Adds Micro-messaging and Goes Mobile). Recently, I spoke with their CEO, Eugene Lee, on their latest offerings.