Daniel Kraft's Blog
The collision of 2.0 and Compliance
2 Sep 2008 - Posted by Daniel Kraft
It is fascinating what you can find within your own organization. One of my colleagues, Cheryl McKinnon, used to work in our Government team and I really didn't have much insight into what she is doing … other than providing great solutions to the Government. Just a few days ago she posted an interesting blog that got my attention: http://blog.gtec.ca/?p=60. In her post, she explores the collision of 2.0 and Compliance and referrs to a statement of SEC Chairman Christopher Cox that the new technologies and tools like blogs and forums might also be used to communicate such sensitive information like financial results. While the SEC views it from a Government perspective, http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2008/2008-158.htm, I was really amazed by the underlying message.
To understand this you need to know that the SEC is usually not providing much guidance on the use of Web sites. According to the statement the last time this happened was 8 years ago. Christopher Cox underlines this with a statement: "The last time the SEC issued guidance in this area, the idea of 'social networks' hadn't yet been developed, and creating a social network where shareholders could meet and exchange views was barely imaginable, …"
Needless to say that I now can understand more about Cheryl's work and expertise around compliance and 2.0. In fact I was able to convince her that 2.0 is one of the most strategic initiates for us and she is now dedicated full time to help us to further develop the social software strategy for Open Text.
What do we learn from that? Well, first of all 2.0 is everywhere. If the SEC, the Government and the marketing and finance people are supporting something, what could be more important? Second, in a 2.0 world things change fast und often unexpected (at least for Cheryl). Third, you have so much talent in your organization … go and find it.
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The Four Expressions of Value in Content Management
18 Aug 2008 - Posted by Daniel Kraft
Every year the industry is waiting for the new reports from the research firms. One of the bigger ones, Gartner, has just released their WCM marketScope and we did extremely well. We scored among the top vendors and Gartner was very complimentary of our offering.
One thing that bothered me was the statement that we run "the risk of still emphasizing the high technical quality of its components and not moving enough toward linking its offering to the business challenges that can be solved with WCM." I am not questioning that the Gartner team has done a good job and that perhaps we are maybe too "techy":in our approach but hey, there is room to grow. So I took a group of smart people from the broader Open Text team to a nice cottage at one of those beautiful lakes North of Toronto. Whenever you need a break and you're looking for a place to clear your mind … get out to the lakes. The fresh air the clear water, some friends, some beers … brilliant. Anyway, we where sitting at the lake front and discussed the true value we can bring to the customer. One thing led to another and we came up with the four expressions of value in Content Management.
Control.
I know- why would a Web guy like me start with the most boring part of our business. Nobody likes control. Even the first comment I got on some of my posts summarized it quite nice: "…problems are uncool, risk is fun". But when you are the one in charge, you may like to add a little control to it.
Control is a real business value. From a Web perspective control is much more than an archive or a record, it is the foundation. Only if you can have your content come from any source of choice and need it to be in compliance with the applicable rules (like DOD, MoReq or DOMEA) than you get to like the idea of control. But it goes even further. You need to know when people post to your Web site and in a 2.0 environment, you may even want to add a validation layer to assure only appropriate content is posted. Yes my friends, even 2.0 requires control.
So what is the business challenge we solve with this? In many of the public facing sites you have content coming from multiple sources. We spent a huge amount of time and resources to build something that is called the library services. It is your interface into all your content, regardless which repository you use, Livelink, SharePoint, SAP, you name it. So we solved the problem many of our customers had, to fully leverage the knowledge they had already in their organization, while providing the required control to it. And the great thing is, talking a little technical, for most of those repositories we even have the enterprise level of control, our enterprise library services that is applying global records and other legal and regulatory requirements to it.
Experience
Of course this expression is my favorite. Experience is what the Web is all about. Look at some of our customers sites like Rolex, isn't that a piece of art. The pure joy of experience is complemented with the value experience is adding to it. After now 6 years of providing personalization we have found that an experience also needs to happen in context. Our customers, employees, partners live in a world where Web experience is expected. They shop on Amazon, access news sites from their iPhone. The expectation is that information will be delivered in context to them, the visitor, and content management provides that valuable experience our end-users demand.
Control & Experience the two door keepers of content.
Consider Control and Experience as the two door keepers of content in any organization. Control is keeping things in order while experience is allowing the consumption. If you manage the two well you have made major progress.
Two more to go.
Since I promised you four expressions of value, we have two more to go. While the first two Control & Experience are kind of easy, the next two are more complex. When you look at an organization you will find two ways to become more successful. You can concentrate on the people or you can concentrate on the process and we all know those are linked to each other. Let's start with the people.
Empower
The main value of content management in the context of people is that we empower them. Think about a room without air … a vacuum. Since sound waves need air to travel the entire room would be very very quiet. Now think of your organization without content … no e-mail, no webpage, no documents, nothing … well, while you may enjoy the first couple of days not working you soon will realize that the entire communication between people is based on sharing information … it is like the water in the water cooler. Without this life preservation element, you will die in a matter of days. There was an episode of a television series called the "Twilight Zone" where the world had been destroyed leaving one man alone with his favorite passion - reading. Standing outside the steps of one of the largest libraries in the world, he did not feel alone, since he had an eternity of knowledge at his disposal. Until he broke his glasses and found that what would have helped him to survive was gone. Information is at the core of our existence and the highlight of our evolution.
We are empowered by what we read, write about, share with our friends via texting, blogging, telephone, meetings or lunch conversations. Empowerment is the idea that we can have control of our communication style to create and consume the water that sustains us, expands our minds and brings excitement to our lives. Within the workplace, the method of communication is changing and the Web is at the core of that information exchange. Whether it is the employee directory or the marketing events list on the public Web page, creating, updating, sharing or removing this content easily, intuitively and on our schedule is where the empowerment value of content management is expressed.
Agility
Since you can't send the organization to the gym, you might find another way to add agility to your organization. Once you have empowered your people, we need to do the same with your processes. Once we have the processes "empowered", we have added a new level of agility to the organization. Traditional process management will look at how the process is defined, followed and updated. Wile we can streamline the process of creating, managing, updating and maintaining information to an online community or device, this is just one aspect of the business. Agility in a Web 2.0 world is about how outsiders view our output and how to better enable their usage of our internal processes. Look at the analytical tools applied to Web pages today. Do you know who is accessing your site, from which search engine or bookmark? Are they talking about you on a Google discussion or linked to you from their deli.cio.us site? Is your website easy to navigate on an iPhone or viewable from a Wii? Agility is how your content experts can interact with the information you provide and how well your Web site responds to the request. Imagine that you know where users click the most using a heat map generated view of your Web site. Would you change the way the page was layed out to better facilitate the navigation of the page - of course you would. The next question is how easy is it to change the layout? Agility in a content management system will let you rearrange the images, text and links on the page easily and quickly by those who are the least technical but most interested in the results.
Agility is the optimization of internal processes and tools that help your organization to realize the benefits of the other expressions of value we have discussed thus far. But more importantly, it is also about making it easy for the outsider to communicate with you. Do you allow any visitor to your website to leave a comment on an article or forum to make it more meaningful? Do you embrace this level of communication and learn from it? Imagine the total value of a solution that takes into account the controls in your organization, empowers the people who are responsible for the sharing of information and delivers an exceptional experience that fits into the way your organization works.
To be perfectly honest, we have been working on this for a while and the Gartner report was the perfect opportunity to launch it. Gartner is right; we need to be much more focused on the business value we provide to you. In fact it should be at the center of our thinking. Therefore, we'll make a radical change to the way we develop and deliver solutions to you.
We will focus on the four outlined expressions of value. Let me know your thoughts and ideas. Is there something that will help you to apply technology better and easier to a business case? Our innovation is with you in mind.
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Experience Matters
7 Jul 2008 - Posted by Daniel Kraft
This week I enjoyed Independence Day in New York and while everybody went to the fire works I had a walk near Wall Street ..so you can imagine that I met close to nobody on the street. Thanks to public free wireless and my iPod Touch I came across an interesting post about a developer, called Sergey Solyanik, that has left Microsoft to work for Google and went back to Microsoft after one year.
So why would that matter to us? Well, the thing that made me start thinking was the blog he posted about why he left Google to go back to Microsoft (http://1-800-magic.blogspot.com/2008/06/back-to-microsoft.html). One major reason for him to leave was that "Software should be developed to be useful to others" … a statement that most of us woud agree to. He goes on and states "the only way to measure the usefulness is by the amount of money that the people are willing to part with to have access to my work." Although we might find that somewhat simplified .. it has some truth to it. In his blog post he goes further and positions Google as the producer of free, fun, unreliable, time wasting application that "values 'coolness' tremendously, and the quality of service not as much." Therefore he decided to leave Google to go back to Microsoft, the company that can deliver "enterprise class reliability to its user applications" as he values"reliability far, far more than 'coolness.'"
At that point all things made sense. Me in the middle of Manhatten, the Capital of the world, the home of hardcore bankers, the Yankees and the place where people pay a milion dollars for a one bedroom appartment. The city were people don't really care how you look, everthing is cool, everthing is celebrated and you if you walk throught the village you can feel that experience really matters. The fireworks of the independent day celebration reached it's peak and I was asking myself why do we need to chose? Can't we have both, the fun and the reliablility?
We at Open Text have our own little debate every day about the right balance (see my Aspirin & Candy blog) I often get asked how does this all fit together? How do you manage to sell the coolest experience through Web sites and 2.0 and at the same time provide archives and records management infrastructure. Well, I don't really know but what I can tell you is, that the internal debates we have about what is more important, or as Sergey states, what is more lucrative from a commercial perspective, are leading to a better understanding of the issues our customers face every day.
The answer is not about fun or reliability it is about fun AND reliability. Only if you build on a solid infrastructure everybody trusts, you will get the sign-off by the management team. But it also requires the experience in the form of an easy to use interface or a great experience on the Web to get the people excited and to embrace the solutions.
Coming back to the question about who is more reliable Google, that is basically providing beta versions only or Microsoft, that is providing a hotfix every other week? Well, following Sergey's advice we should look at the money. I did and according to Nasdaq.com Google is valued much higher per $ revenues they generate and Microsoft is making more cash. Maybe that is the answer to it: You drive your top line with the experience but you need to keep the cash in the house.
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Candy & Aspirin in Action - Feedback from the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston
17 Jun 2008 - Posted by Daniel Kraft
I'd like to give you an update from my visit to the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston. It was a very inspiring experience and you could tell that the 2.0 wave in the enterprise is just about to start. As you know Enterprise 2.0 represents a core component of our strategy and therefore this was a major event for us. Even Tom Jenkins our Executive Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer was joined us at the event and we had the opportunity to present a strategic workshop about the Open Text view on 2.0 which we named Candy & Aspirin in Action.
See details at http://www.enterprise2conf.com/
Everybody wants Candy ...
Most of us know the 2.0 wave from the consumer side, like Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube. If you take a closer look, many of the success factors for those platforms also apply to the Enterprise. Rich media, user generated content and social networking can be very powerful. Think about the intranet and how you can draw from the knowledge of the workforce by providing them a platform that is providing all the great features from the Web 2.0 world like blogs, forums, podcasts, wikis but also instant messaging or collaborative spaces. To illustrate the different aspects I consider this the Candy part of 2.0, the nice wrapped, sweet treat. In the workshop (just in real life) it was my job to present this to the audience.
... but organizations also need Aspirin
On the other hand, we need to be mindful about the legal and compliance implications related to this. All that social networking or the exchange of ideas and information can be tracked and followed. Senior management will be held responsible for any material information provided by an employee. Once is is digital, it can be discovered. Just like e-mail caused a lot of problems in the beginning we need to by aware that 2.0 content requires just as much compliance as any other content. This aspect represents the Aspirin part of 2.0, aka the risk avoiding, headache preventing and curing ingredient. Tom Jenkins took over this task and did a great job in highlighting that we only succeed if we make 2.0 safe.
The 2.0 Strategy
Those fundamental elements are playing a key role in the 2.0 world. Only a balanced approach between the the fun (Candy) and the compliance (Aspirin) allows you to really capitalize on the concept of 2.0. During my workshop one gentlemen asked us "what strategy we would recommend to approach 2.0" and you could tell by the looks in the room had the same question. I believe that the answer to this question goes back to the fundamental issue with 2.0: There is no 2.0 strategy! The new opportunities that come with the rise of social computing needs to be linked to business strategy.
New ideas supported
On a seperate note: You may recall my last post about the 2.0 University. We have taken the next step and sponsored a program that is called the Launch Pad Competition at the conference Boston. A large group of individuals and companies took the opportunity to submit videos of their planned or existing products to compete for most to creative new offerings. The 5 finalists had the opportunity to present their ideas to the entire community at the conference. I had the opportunity to meet the five teams prior to the presentation back stage and it was great to see the excitement and dedication that went into their projects. http://launchpad.enterprise2conf.com/node/5
My conclusion from the conference is that 2.0 will happen and we all should be ready for it. It will be both fun and hard work. I am certainly going to continue to invest my time and interest in this space and will continue to update you along my journey.
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1 Comment:
Guilio Said...
Daniel, I suppose that e-mail still cause major problems contrary your positive depiction of the situation. Just count your v**gra mails you surely get each and every day. We all know it just happens and those senders are mostly innocent hacked neighbors of us. Boring! Uncool! Be aware that Candy must be cool to be respected by the community. Legal problems are uncool but risk is fun. Just go 4 it. Hehe, your top nub got lost in action?
Keep Candy!
CU, G.
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Back to School - The 2.0 University
9 Jun 2008 - Posted by Daniel Kraft
Centre of Research
You may have seen that we, together with the University of Waterloo, are creating the Leading Institute for Web 2.0 and Digital Media. Our idea is to unite students, educators and professionals in research and innovation. It's location in the arts community of Stratford will bridge the worlds of business, art and the Internet. In addition to the funding & technology we will provide our, executives and thought leaders as contributing faculty, sharing their experience in the classroom.
Maybe soon you'll come to one of my classes … or I come to one of yours as customers & partners are also invited to participate. I am looking forward to that.
Before we get started, let me quote Tom Jenkins our Executive Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer as I like the way he is summarizing the idea: "From Facebook to YouTube to Wikipedia, we are witnessing a revolution in the way consumers socialize, share knowledge and harness collective intelligence. But we've only just begun. There's enormous potential to build on what's been created so far, and apply these new technologies to business, government and culture in new and exciting ways."
The "we've only just begun" is my favorite part as I really believe we're up for something big here. If you'd like to read the entire release you may want to look at www.opentext.com/news/pr.html?id=2031
Why back to school
I have been asked why we are going back to school, why do we invest in something that is not directly leading to a better margin in the next quarter. I gave the answer already: we just begun! As much as we all love to be the thought leaders, posting strategic press releases and claim that we know about everything … there is so much more to come.
And that is why we are investing in the future of social computing …to enhance our knowledge and nurture innovation within the space. Sure we have the technology, we have the products and we have customers that use those products successfully. But we want more. Why is all of that happening, what are the drivers behind that idea and how can we capitalize on this? We are committed to also work on that.
The concept behind the Open Text Centre of Research is fairly simple. We want to commercialize on the new technologies that are going to be developed and continue to lead this market. The combination of educational power and innovation combined with the market focus of our company is what makes this initiative so unique. We leverage the dynamic environment at the crossing of creativity, technology and people.
So we believe getting back to school is needed. Let's find out what the next wave is going to be. What about 3.0 or 4.0 or 17.0? How is rich media evolving and how are we dealing with the growing requirements, what comes after AJAX or RSS, will there be hologram projectors, what role will the mobile device play?
I was attending a boot camp style opening event at the Stratford Institute some days ago. I had the opportunity to explain RSS feeds to a member of the University community that has never seen anything like that. While for many of us this is trivial it was amazing to see what happens once you have passed the pure technical aspect. We had long conversation about distributed information, how to get people better communicating and how that will change the future of our daily life.
Stratford is known for its famous festival (http://www.stratford-festival.on.ca/). During the meeting Tom Jenkins made the comment that in a near future we may see the play of Romeo and Juliet happening online with actors being in different locations. Almost like a mash-up you'll see related content appear like one play although it comes from different source.
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Daniel Kraft
Hi my name is Daniel Kraft and I am the President of RedDot, The Open Text Web Solutions Group. I will be regularly posting my views and thoughts on Web2.0, Social Computing, Enterprise2.0 and various Enterprise Content Management related subjects.
