A Vision for an Integrated Collaboration Environment

Developing the global community I talked about in my previous entry, turns out to be a little more challenge than originally expected. This has nothing to do with the community itself, but with how the developers are working together. Indeed, we are developing this with people from different companies, sitting on both sides of the ocean. So, you would think we just need a little collaboration space and everything would be resolved, isn’t it. Well wrong, first the traditional file sharing tools do not allow to share some types of files (eg. java scripts generated by our PowerPoint to Flash conversion tool), do not allow us to make documents publically available (e.g. Google Docs and PDF documents), and I could go on like this.

As the world becomes global, increasingly companies and people need to collaborate virtually. Unfortunately the tool providers (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo) are looking myopically in silos, addressing collaboration aspects in isolation. What we really need is for a company to take the problem from a different angle, starting by asking itself what is required to collaborate and then develop the integrated environment to just do that. So, let’s think a minute, what do we need to collaborate?

• Well, first we need to share documents either with a know community, with a larger group who’s names and e-mails we do not all have, or be made publically available. These documents may just be looked at, may be downloaded, may be commented upon (with notes or voice) or may be edited by particular members of the community. Obviously we would want to keep track of any activity around the documents.
• Second, we may have to interact, either asynchronously or synchronously, using text, sound or video, or any combination of those. Interactions may be private (between two people) or with a group. During those interactions, documents may have to be referred to and shared. Data may be made available also.
• Third, we may have to work together at a common task, in that process we may share real-time information, documents, and we may use a common application that can be on one of our systems or in the cloud. Here again this can happen between two people or with a larger group.

A number of supporting functions should be available. These include a group calendar (that links with the calendars of the members to identify availability etc.), action item lists, a parking lot, participant information, version control, etc.

Most of what I describe here is available in one form or another on the internet, but there is  no consistency, no easy way to cobble it all together, and even if we managed, we would spend our life login on to different systems. Why is nobody looking at the collaboration needs of globally dispersed people and addressing their needs, rather than continuously coming up with incompatible tools.

Building a global Community

With a colleague we have embarked on what turns out to be a real interesting experiment. We are building a virtual community focused at a specific group of people with responsibilities. The objective is for them to be able to continue their discussions, idea generation and thought leadership exchange although they can no longer meet in  conferences, during exchanges etc.

To do this we have started by identifying what they were looking for and identified a number of specific subjects. We are now hunting for thought provoking content in those areas and are looking at experts that might be willing to trigger discussions. We believe this to be of key importance to initiate the debate and to attract the users back to the site. The objective is to release content on a regular basis. Content consists of short  sessions, up to 20-25 minutes each, that can be viewed when-ever time is available. We keep the sessions short because we believe it is difficult to attract the attention of the user for longer periods of time. If the subject requires more time, we suggest the contributors subdivide the presentation in multiple parts.

Associated with the thought leadership subjects we have dialogue areas where the users can discuss the subject, respond to each others comments and initiate an open debate in the community. If they wish a more private discussion they can contact each other as the contact details of the members are known by the others. Over time we may develop sub communities, but that will not be part of version 1.0

We are also planning an open forum, where any question can be raised. This will, amongst others, serve as a source for new subjects as we expect members to ask questions about what keeps them awake at night.

A library offers background documents, links to blogs, articles, RSS feeds etc. This is really the information base the members can rely on.

We are in the early stages, ready to launch. The feedback we received from people to whom we showed the prototype are very positive. So, let’s hope it works. It is something new we are trying. All suggestions are welcome.

On-demand Presentations

Working with teams all over the world and being used to share my presentations for them to use, I am often confronted with the request to share with them what I say during the presentation. It is difficult to get everybody on the phone at the same time and walk them through the material. Also, they end up using things at different moments in time and may have forgotten what we discussed when I walked them through the material. So, finding a good tool to record voice and synchronize with PowerPoint slides has been one of my objectives for quite a while. I do know you can record narration with PowerPoint, but if you want to listen to it, you need to download the whole file. So a “streaming” approach was what I was looking for.

Over the years I have been experimenting with many tools. Some only worked with a Microsoft Streaming Server, which I did not have access too, others took a long time to download prior to start, others did not support features of PowerPoint 2007, others did not synchronize well, or left long blank periods in between two slides, others made extremely large files etc. Some seemed to do everything I needed, but cost several hundreds of US$, and the trial version did not really allow a thorough test.

May quest may have reached an end, as I found a small plug-in for PowerPoint 2007, called ISpring. At this point in time, I only tried the free software component and frankly, it seems to work like a dream. It converts PowerPoint into Flash, and my 16 minute trial presentation takes about 11.4MB. The production is extremely simple. Using PowerPoint narration, the audio is recorded and the timing of the slides is set. Once that is performed, a plug-in module, labeled iSpringConverter, allows the production of the flash files. Three files are created, one of which is an html file to link to for playback. As I mentioned it is extremely simple and works well. And on top of that it is free. The only drawback is that the iSpring logo appears in the control menu. To get rid of that, the Pro version, currently at 199 US$, is available.  It’s simple and it works.

No Travel, Collaboration & Performance

We're all being told to stop traveling. However, in our international or global roles, we are all supposed to continue collaboration within the enterprise and across the eco-system. obviously, our performance is supposed to be at least as good as what it used to be, however we are not been given any tools or hints on how to do this virtually. Isn't that strange?

I had the opportunity to meet a number of industry analysts last week and asked them the question if they saw research in that space. And frankly, with a very small number of exception, the overwhelming response was NO. I believe there is a great opportunity here to innovate and contribute to the companies need to reduce costs and greenhouse gas emissions, while motivating employees and improve efficiency.

The answer in my mind is not ONE tool, as the collaboration needs are from a variety of types. In the attached drawing I tried to illustrate my idea. Let me walk you through this by taking a couple examples from a supply chain.

• If you work collaboratively with a supplier and he sees that one of the trucks will arrive late, he can easily make you aware of this through the use of an instant messaging software. A couple of interactions are enough to point out what the issue is, how much delay it will cause and how certain you can be of the new timing. This interactive conversation will obviously be complemented by data that is automatically transferred between partners (e.g. Shipment Notification), and business processes that are executed (e.g. Call-Off process).
• If, when receiving the new revision of the forecast, the supplier realizes he is unable to deliver, but has another proposal on how things could be done, he may want to have a more personal interaction with the planner. He can call him up, using regular lines or VoIP, eventually complemented with PC based video, to discuss the situation, his proposal and come up with an agreement on how to move forward. This interaction is obviously followed up by a transfer of data and the execution of a forecast revision process, and its acceptance.
• If the customer is planning to introduce a brand new product, that implies a different approach in the supply chain, he will probably not want to discuss this over the phone or instant messaging. He will probably be interested in looking at his supplier eye to eye. Video conferencing, and telepresence are ways to achieve this. The interaction is different as it needs a different way to view and understand the attitude of the other.
• If the customer wants ideas being generated by his own or suppliers employees, he will probably use another mechanism. Today a number of "innovation storm" techniques exist. But here again, they address a specific purpose.

These are just examples, but they illustrate the variety of technologies that are required and the different skills that are required to interact with each other. It used to be so simple just to drive or fly to a common location, discuss things face to face and end in the bar,.... where a lot of issues were washed away with a couple pints. Haven't found any techniques to address that one unfortunately.

Web 2.0 and the Enterprise

Late last week, I received a message pointing out social networking had no place in the enterprise. Indeed said the message, Facebook, Twitter and the others do not add any value to the enterprise. Well I choose to respectfully disagree with that comment. Indeed, enterprises should increasingly look at the Web 2.0 space and how it can help them in running their business. There are two main reasons for this:

• First, a new generation of employees are entering the workforce. They are called the Y generation, and have grown up using SMS, Instant Messaging and others. They are all over Facebook, share photo’s in Flickr, video’s in Youtube etc. For them, e-mail is a dinosaur. Whether we like it or not, they are integrating their experience in their business communication in the same way they do privately. If you are interested, a very good case study in the February issue of  Harvard Business Review describes the phenomena
• But there is a more immediate need. In many global companies, travel is severely restricted. But the business needs to go on, and the need for collaboration is not diminishing. Actually, I would argue that the increase in volatility in the current markets only increases that need. Companies have to find new approaches and tools to collaborate virtually.

As pointed out by Dion Hinchcliffe in his blog  entry “Using Web 2.0 to reinvent your business for the economy downturn”, the deeper implication of web 2.0 for the enterprise are often overlooked. The drawing on the left comes from an older entry, but is still very relevant. Listening back to a definition of Web 2.0 given by Tim O’Reilly, I really like the concept of “the user adds value”. Indeed, where in traditional environments you have the producer and the consumer, web 2.0 gives everybody the possibility to contribute. And is that not what we want from a collaboration perspective. To my knowledge, very little research has been done around collaboration tools and what approach to take for what type of business process. Companies need to collaborate all the time, being it for forecasting, sales & order planning, product design or any other critical process.

This brings us back to generation Y. We should take advantage of their arrival to train the organization in the use of such tools to improve collaboration and productivity. If we don’t do that, chances are that they will continue using their favorite tools and expose company information on the internet. I was talking to a client the other day and he pointed out to me he had spent the morning in their local office. He had seen one of their young engineers typing frantically into IM. He was ready to go to him and point out that private conversations did not have their place in the office, but fortunately asked his employee why he was using the tool. As it turned out he was reviewing a beta version of a new software that was being developed by the central IT team in Eastern Europe, and sharing in real time his remarks with the developer who happened to also be an IM fan. My client told me he was happy he had asked first, before beating him up. Now, this scenario is a nightmare for many CIO’s as security cannot be guaranteed. Unfortunately, they do not provide any other means to achieve the same results. Web 2.0 is a tremendous way to harvest the knowledge of the enterprise, increasing productivity and streamline approaches. It is completely under-used, but could be of such a great help in the current downturn. So, what are we waiting for?