This current economic client is having a devastating effect on almost every business around. In order to adapt to changing conditions and opportunities, businesses will need to use flexible, adaptable systems to survive. The days of expensive, year long implementations of behind-the-firewall software will be few and far between.
I recently attended a Forrester Briefing and listened to comments from Peter Burris, who is a very smart guy. They’ve done a host of studies showing that technology will be a growing part of how businesses compete and differentiate themselves in the future.
While systems and software used to be very “behind the scenes” and often transaction based, it is the case no longer. Consumers and businesses alike buy differently, consume differently, and recommend differently. Trends like social networking, video on demand, ecommerce will continue to force businesses to adapt to keep up with their customers. They cannot rely on systems that take years to implement and most don’t have the budgets to make large investments, at least for the next couple of years.
The growing focus on SaaS, cloud computing, application platforms, etc. are all responses to this growing trend in the market. There will be other solutions in the future for mobile, etc. that we haven’t even imagined. They all support the need for businesses to utilize systems that they can deploy, change and retire quickly. In my real job, I remember meeting with a venture capitalist who talked about how their firm looks for opportunities where they see lots of “wiggling”. He couldn’t describe what that really meant, or how one gets paid for wiggling; I thought he was a lunatic.
In retrospect, he does make one good point. Things happen quickly on the internet and in this changing global economy. When a business sees wiggling (or opportunities) either positive or negative, they need agile systems to respond. One size fits all software and packaging is going the way of the VCR. I think this will continue to grow in importance and focus as enterprises evaluate new systems and invest in new technology. What do you think?
SIIA issued a series of press releases naming their preview companies for next week’s conference. Here is a link to a story on MarketWatch discussing the conference and highlighted companies. The competition to get on stage was among 82 companies, and we were one of 11 to win. We are presenting at 10:30 on Tuesday. We got a prime spot right after Mark Beniof, the CEO of SalesForce, who is doing the key note. We are extremely psyched. Wish us luck.
We are in the heat of preparing a new release, which will be let out into the wild next week. The ups and downs of building a release are quite dramatic. I’ll focus on testing for this conversation. It is a funny set of emotions. In the beginning, you feel like kid opening presents for your birthday. After talking about new features for weeks, designing them, arguing about how the work, etc, you get your first glimpse of the actual new application and features. This part is really fun.
The next phase is when you get into testing. In the beginning, you find bugs but you get in a groove. The bugs are usually in the new stuff, so they are relatively easy to find. This part is good because you feel like you are really working.
The phase after this one is the toughest (the one we are in right now). The application is really shaping up, and it is much tougher to find bugs. On one hand, this is obviously a really good thing. For the tester, it is really boring and tedious. You search for things that are wrong and try to think of as many edge cases as you can. Every now and then, you get rewarded. As the days go by, it becomes harder to break things (again, a good thing).
Finally, you finish the testing phase and get ready to release the software. The excitement builds. We put up system notices letting our customers know. Then we go to sleep knowing there is a shiny new present that will be waiting the next day. In the middle of the night, the boys in Sweden do their magic and presto. This is the REALLY fun and exciting part. Hope this helps explain one small part of the software development process.
This is a blog post from ReadWriteWeb, where I occasionally contribute.
I sat through a very interesting presentation at the OpenAir User Conference. The key takeaway was a statistic on achieving enterprise software success. Contrary to most of what we cover on blogs, marketing, demos, etc., effective user adoption is the absolute best predictor of enterprise software success.
According to a study done by the Sand Hill Group and Neochange, the most critical factor (70% listed as number 1) for software success and return-on-investment is effective user adoption. Software functionality came in at 1% surprisingly, with organization change at 16% and process alignment at 13%. This is a remarkable result. You can have the best software in the world, with the most sophisticated features, analytics and integration, blah blah blah, but if people don’t use it, it isn’t going to add value. I can’t tell you how many RFPs and software selection processes I’ve been involved with in prior lives that focus almost exclusively on tiny little, “knat’s ass” features that few people if at all will ever use. This study shows that focusing so much on features is missing the boat entirely.
This finding is very interesting for all kinds of applications, including consumer applications. Features very rarely make someone take to an application or not. Moreover, I doubt most software companies really take user adoption as a holistic approach into account when designing their applications. If this trend is accurate (and my experience tells me it is), then I think it has very interesting ramifications on how software should be designed, sold and implemented. User adoption is typically something that comes at the end of a cycle. This says it should be one of the most important elements of the entire process. Please share any opinions or war stories that either confirm or refute this conclusion.
I’m pleased to invite you to an exciting webinar on November 20th at 1PM EST / 10AM PST. Brian Krug, Director of Professional Services at newScale, will join us to discuss how using social collaboration technology like GroupSwim can measurably improve the results and customer satisfaction associated with large, complex projects.
During the session, we will discuss how social collaboration can get projects started on the right foot, keep consultants and customers on the same page, and reduce the frustration and errors associated with “Reply All” emails and multiple document versions.
We will cover the following topics during this session:
1. Utilize GroupSwim during the sales cycle to set expectations and impress customers before the project even starts
2. Provide a place to level-set and communicate before the official project kick-off
3. Communicate effectively across relevant projects and project teams, all while creating a permanent record of knowledge and documents
4. Leverage collaboration tools like wikis that enable “inter-creativity”, which gets consultants and customers deeply engaged and improves project deliverables and/or products This webinar will take place on Thursday, November 20th at 1PM EST / 10AM PST. Please register here to join us on November 20th for this interesting and informative discussion. I hope to see you there!
As usual, we are hard at work preparing a new release. This one will come out the week of November 17th. This release is all about making site managers happier, and adding some fit and finish to other areas. The one after this will have something really new. Here is the list of features in the next release:
Direct Add - this will enable site owners and managers to directly add users to the site versus sending them an email invitation. When the user is added, they will be in an unconfirmed state but can still get daily digests and other communication feeds. The manager will be able to influence all the profile settings
Bulk Upload - you can also add users by uploading a CSV file with names and emails. This makes getting your site ramped up a snap
User Profile Refresh - managers will be able to modify users profiles. This helps when they are added to the site or if they are not in the appropriate groups
Mass Group Changes - managers can add or remove multiple people from multiple groups in one step. This is also important for LDAP/AD integration if you have it
Content Linking - we are adding a feature where you can link to other content in the site from a single link box in the post form. For example, if you are in a wiki, you can add a link to a relevant discussion or file right from the post form using most recently used or even searching for it
Watchlist Improvements - you can now watch files and wikis. Use a RSS feed or email alerts to stay on top of the content that is most important to you
Wiki Feeds - we are adding “clumping” so when a single person makes multiple changes to a wiki page, they will be consolidated into one line item. We are also adding the change comment to the feed so you can see exactly what was done to the wiki page
Videos - we are adding videos to help train users on wikis, files, discussions and watchlists. If the area is empty, a video will be waiting there for them to watch
Tag navigation - we are adding a “All” tab to the tag navigation. When you click on a tag in the tag cloud or anywhere in GroupSwim, you’ll see a mixed sort of relevant wiki pages, discussions, emails and files
Captcha - we are adding captcha on the invite page to eliminate any spam invites managers may be getting
Reporting - we have started to add more reporting to the site. You can now click on someone’s profile and see their last contribution. Much more to come on this one
API Support - way more to come on this one
As you can see, this is a heavy release. We are very excited to see it come out. Let us know what you think.
DreamForce is the big user conference for SalesForce customers and partners. Everyone comes together to learn more about SalesForce, imbibe some drinks, and network with others. In our case, we are looking for customers. Business that use SalesForce are perfect potential customers for us. They are comfortable with SaaS, most likely reliant on making good use of their information, and are the right size. We are very excited to meet with many of these business and show them GroupSwim.
Prepping for a conference like this takes serious time. Here are some of the things we’ve had to do or are doing right now:
Decide to attend or not. This was not an easy decision. It is an expensive conference to be a sponsor but we do believe the ROI will be there.
Pick a booth location. This is surprisingly hard. You need to factor in where the competition is, where people are likely to congregate (by the bar and food go figure), and if there are other big vendors around you who are likely to attract crowds
Create booth artwork. SalesForce does provide a nice booth and customized artwork to cover it. Our ace designer Luke had to create 3 panels for this. It took hours of planning on what we should do, and then having him whip them up
GroupSwim DreamForce Booth
Create give-aways. We did some shirts that we will give away and we also have datasheets that we had to design and get printed. This all took serious time
Finalize messaging. We need to make sure we all are saying the same things when we man the booth. We’ll get questions about how we integrate with SalesForce, do we charge differently, etc.. We have all this but need to make sure we are consistent
Plan logistics. We need to get our monitor, aforementioned shirts, and datasheets to the conference before it starts. We also need to plan the schedule so we make sure the booth is manned the whole time, while not driving each other crazy and having people attend some of the sessions
Schedule meetings. There will be many partners and GroupSwim customers in attendance, and we are in the process of scheduling time with them.
As you can see, there is much to do. We are very excited for next week.
We hosted a great webinar yesterday on how to use wikis to improve productivity in your business. Stewart Mader and I hosted over 40 people for the session. Here is what we covered:
Defined wikis and their use in business
Described how wikis can be used for project management and knowledge capture
Demonstrated how GroupSwim works in this use case
Explained how Stewart used a wiki to write his book (WikiPatterns) and the benefits associated with this method
Showed how GroupSwim works in this use case
Discussed adoption strategies and tactics for using wikis in business
Answered questions
Here is a recording of the webinar if you would like to watch it. We enjoyed the experience and will do more in the future.
Update: The webinar participants asked questions during the session. Here they are with our answers:
1. Can you import XML into GroupSwim?
No. You can import HTML and copy and paste from other wikis. We will be adding XML importing features in the future
2. Is your wiki available as a virtual extension of your book to continue the conversation online?
The best place to continue the conversation online is Grow Your Wiki. You’ll find lots of articles on wiki uses, case studies, adoption strategies, and ongoing conversation among readers. Here are a few articles you may find helpful:
Yes. For example, you can embed video, images, and audio files in GroupSwim wikis
4. What was the process of going from a wiki to a hard copy book?
In some cases, I directly exported content from the wiki as XML, then inserted that XML into the publishing templates. In a few instances where more complex formatting was required, I simply copied and pasted content out of the wiki and into the publishing templates. The bottom line with a wiki is that it doesn’t store content in any proprietary file formats, so putting content in or taking it out of the wiki can simply be a matter of copying and pasting text.
5. Is WikiPatterns available as a PDF?
Wikipatterns is currently available as a softcover book through Amazon.com and major bookstores. If you’d like to see the book become available in an electronic version, you can vote for Amazon to create an electronic version for their Kindle ebook reader.
6. How is a wiki different than an intranet?
A wiki can be the intranet for your organization. Especially in smaller organizations that don’t have a lot of other content management and collaboration tools, a wiki is a great choice to serve as your central knowledge management and collaboration hub. In larger organizations, the intranet often serves as an organization-wide information dissemination tool, but not a knowledge and collaboration hub for individual teams. A wiki is complementary to the intranet because it gives teams and departments a virtual workspace to organize their meeting agendas & minutes, project materials, documentation, and shared knowledge.
7. Is there any interface between wikis and bberrys?
You may be able to access wiki pages using the browser in your BlackBerry, but perhaps the better way to use a BlackBerry in connection with a wiki is to subscribe to wiki pages for updates via RSS or email. Those updates can be sent to your BlackBerry, and you can stay up-to-date as others on your team update content on the wiki.
8. Do you have any strategies for convincing wikiphobic (and/or technophobic) coworkers to make the switch?
Some people look at Wikipedia, and become concerned about all wikis being a free-wheeling, anonymous, potentially anarchic “mess”. But wiki use inside an organization and Wikipedia are two completely separate worlds. Inside an organization, the audience is much more stable and easily identified - it usually consists of employees, business partners, and - in some cases - customers. Therefore, the need to have a wide-open, publicly accessible site to attract users isn’t necessary. The more important considerations inside an organization are: interoperability with other business tools, ability to organize content by department, team, or project, and the ability to assign read and edit permissions to the appropriate content for each person.
9. In a company of about 70 employees, how long would you estimate the adoption process would take before fully utilizing a wiki?
It depends. Some factors include:
Current tools and infrastructure
Management support
Company culture
Incentives
In our experience, we have seen some customers adopt them aggressively and quickly once they see how effective wikis are. In other circumstances, it could be a month or more.
10. Is it possible to port mediawiki content to GroupSwim?
The best way to move is copy and paste. We’ve had other customers use this method, and I just tried posting an article from Wikipedia into GroupSwim and it worked perfectly; we don’t currently have an automated method for doing this.
11. Is this permission/community based so that different departments can maintain their pages but keep others from editing their pages?
GroupSwim is organized by groups within a site, so you can set the permissions to allow departments to limit who can see or edit their wikis. The group and permission structure is extremely powerful and you can do all sorts of things to organize your site.
12. Are users added to GroupSwim or can Active Directory be used?
You can use either method. We can integrate with a company AD, or site membership can be managed from GroupSwim; it is up to you.
13. Is GroupSwim hosted?
Yes. GroupSwim is software as a service and is not available any other way.
14. What is the best way to publish content on a wiki into a document, if needed?
GroupSwim allows you to copy and paste the content (or HTML) directly into other applications. We are adding the ability to export wiki content as PDFs and/or Word documents in the future.
15. Can you recommend some wikis that are easy to edit?
We are very pleased to be hosting a webinar tomorrow. The topic is how to use wikis in a business setting to improve productivity. Wikis are incredibly powerful collaboration tools that many people not only don’t use but also don’t know what they are. Please join us for this interesting session. Talk to you tomorrow.
I sat through a very interesting presentation yesterday. The topic was how the software industry has fundamentally changed and that services is a growing part of software company revenue, whether they like it or not. Customers expect solutions these days and aren’t interested in having a disk shipped to them and wishes for good luck. While this is interesting, the key takeaway for me was a statistic on achieving enterprise software success.
According to a study done by the Sand Hill Group and Neochange, the most critical factor (70% listed as number 1) for software success and return-on-investment is effective user adoption. Software functionality came in at 1% surprisingly, with organization change at 16% and process alignment at 13%. This is a remarkable result. You can have the best software in the world, with the most sophisticated features, analytics and integration, blah blah blah, but if people don’t use it, it isn’t going to add value. I can’t tell you how many RFPs and software selection processes I’ve been involved with in prior lives that focus almost exclusively on tiny little, “knat’s ass” features that few people if at all will ever use. This study shows that focusing so much on features is missing the boat entirely.
There are several factors contributing to effective user adoption that include:
Training
Change management strategies and tactics
Executive support
Software ease-of-use
Etc.
I’m very encouraged by this as a predictor for GroupSwim’s success. We have built an incredibly easy-to-use application that is fun to use. Our customers and analysts have told us this time and time again. It is a fact that GroupSwim is easy to use and requires no training. If you believe this, we have half the requirements covered without spending a dime. If our customers and prospects use the application to change how they work or interact with their customers and partners, they get LOTS of value while expending very little effort or capital. I hope to see more studies like this in the future
