We Matter

eTouch was named one of KMWorld's 100 Companies That Matter in Knowledge Management. After being included in August 2010 as one of KMWorld's Trend Setting Products of 2010, we were really honored to also be included in this knowledge-management-specific list.

Read the eTouch press release, our CEO blog post and KMWorld article.

A Fire Hose of Information

My interest was immediately piqued by the startling title -- "Don't You Dare Email This Story" -- of this article in The Wall Street Journal.

The article is about information overload. No surprises there, as we're overloaded with information at every turn from colleagues, friends, on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, with news articles, blogs and so on and so on. We can't seem to take a vacation during which we can completely disconnect, often because of the fear of even more overload when we return relaxed and refreshed.

The reporter begins her article with this stat:

"Information workers, who comprise about 63% of the U.S. work force, are each bombarded with 1.6 gigabytes of information on average every day through emails, reports, blogs, text messages, calls and more, according to preliminary data from a report coming later this year, an update of the 2003 "How Much Information?" report."

But it gets more interesting as reporter Andrea Coombes writes:

"U.S. companies lose an estimated $900 billion a year in lost productivity because of information overload, according to Basex, a research and consulting firm."

Wait, what? We have so much information, it is making us unproductive. Geesh. Didn't you think it was supposed to do the opposite? I mean, our competitors can't catch us off guard because we're reading the same things they are every day; and we're always on the bleeding edge of industry trends, because we know what everyone is doing and thinking every minute. If only that was the case.

Instead, a lot of this great 'content' out there is just noise. Not all of it; there's lots of important, successful thought leaders saying and writing valuable things. But we have to weed through it all - separate the weak from the chaff. It isn't easy to do. Tools can help.

This WSJ reporter gives suggestions, and there are some valuable tips in there.

I've found that sharing links, sites, articles and an occasional IM session to get status updates with my colleagues on our wiki that functions as our intranet works wonders.

What works for you?

SamePage News

We are coming full force out of the summer (the fog and chill-filled summer in the Bay Area). I wanted to share some fun and recent news from SamePage.

First, Dan Gelinas of Security Systems News wrote an article about how our new customer, DICE Corp. is benefiting from SamePage and sharing key advantages with it's own customers. DICE develops large-scale software automation for the security and alarm industries and created DICEWise Wiki as a knowledge management tool. It deployed SamePage to tighten up operations, cut down on wasted paper and postage and deliver up-to-date efficiency to its central station clients while saving time and money.

Cliff Dice, president of DICE Corp. praised the leap forward SamePage provides.

“In the past we moved from having paper for manuals to digital copies on disc. Nowadays, with our software being cloud computing based—anybody can access it through a browser anywhere in the world—the need for training and documentation takes on a new dimension. With cloud-based computing environments, which are deployable anywhere, you have embedded documentation, which takes us to the wiki,” Dice said. “People think of documentation as a living, breathing thing now that they can modify and add to … You want your customers to be able to add to it … If you’re using my product now and you don’t know what a particular field is, you can go click on the arrow and it will deliver the webpage with the wiki embedded. And it builds in the whole knowledgebase.”

Read the rest of the DICE and SamePage article.

In other exciting news, SamePage was voted one of KMWorld's TrendSetting Products of 2010.

"We are pleased to add eTouch SamePage to our list of truly innovative products that are helping to drive the knowledge management market," said Hugh McKellar, editor of KMWORLD. "In our eighth year of awarding trend-setting products, our judging panel assessed even more products than previously. Each product selected demonstrated clearly identifiable technology breakthroughs that serve the vendors' full spectrum of constituencies, especially their customers."

All this good news is helping put our team in high gear as we move into the busy Fall. Watch this space for more.

Choosing Enterprise 2.0 Collaboration Tools

I recently read and commented on an article on WebWorkerDaily about "5 Questions to Ask When Choosing Enterprise Collaboration Tools."

The article listed the following as relevant for both large and small organizations, as well as companies of different types:

1. 1- Where will your team be working?
2. 2- Does it offer room for your team to grow?
3. 3- How stable is the company that makes the application?
4. 4- How bleeding edge do you need to be?
5. 5- How does the pricing break down in the long-term?

(Read more in-depth descriptions of the above in the WWD article.)

These are all excellent questions and are vital to the decision-making process. There are many more to add that are important and relevant across industries and company size. I expanded it to a top 10 (not in order of priority) and then added one for good luck.

6. How well can the solution scale to support a larger user base? This is a key element for most companies, unless you are 200% sure you will never, ever grow (kind of a pessimistic viewpoint, don't you think?) Scalability is so important because any investment in a new tool costs the company time and money. You want to be sure you won't have to throw away all that effort when you add 20 employees or 200. A quality collaboration solution will have the ability to grow with the enterprise.

7. How secure is it? Obviously, you have security systems in place enterprise-wide that protect individual PCs and the company network. Collaboration tools often have the options to deploy on-premise (behind your company firewall) or in the cloud, SaaS style (web based). On-premise deployments would have the same security as your other tools and information. You want to be sure all can integrated securely. Plus, many IT people are concerned about security with web-based services. It is important that your collaboration tool provider has considered this and has in place a robust, enterprise-grade security system that prevents unauthorized access to sensitive information.

8. How easy is it for a non-technical user, as many enterprise workers are? Wiki syntax, HTML and so on are great for a behind the scenes discussion of how your collaboration tool works, but they are not the terms you average user needs or wants to be concerned with. WYSIWYG - what you see is what you get - is a confusing acronym, but the meaning behind it is what matters. Navigating through a new tool, adding materials and collaborating should be so easy even the least technical employee you have can do it. Confusing systems are barriers to participation, which defeats the very purpose of the collaboration tool purchase.

9. What is the quality and level of support after you purchase? Several other commenters to the WWD article made note of this, and it is a key element. With any collaboration and E2.0 tool, you will have questions and need support. There may be a priced package or some other type of support, but you need to know what you can expect from your solution provider after you sign on the dotted line.

10. How do the features match our objectives? Why are you buying this collaboration tool? What does your company hope to accomplish with it?It’s important to have some understanding of what you hope to accomplish with your tool so that you can match features to tasks. If document management is one of your key objectives, how does the tool organize pages, sections, etc.? Work it out to figure out what you need, otherwise anyone can sell you something you don't.

11. BONUS: Can I play with it before I buy? Look for solutions that aren’t afraid to let you trial for free during the consideration process. This is the best way to determine ease of use and determine whether all your employees - the tech-oriented ones and the non-techies (see #8 above) - can grasp the interface. WYSIWYG - what you see is what you get - is a good feature to look for. This is also a good time to see the features in action. Reading about dashboards and WebDAV is one thing, seeing how it actually works is another thing completely and will enable you to get a good feel for what you can expect to see on a daily basis with your own tool.

Are there more considerations integral to the process that I haven't mentioned here? Probably. What are some of yours?

Wikis in HR

I recently read an interesting article in Personnel Today that outlined Enterprise 2.0 solutions for the benefit of corporate human resources.

Anyone in the Enterprise 2.0 milieu can instantly imagine the inherent value of wikis and other collaborative solutions for HR departments large and small.

This article, written by Jon Ingham, started with an intro: ´Social media often has a bad name in HR – something to be controlled or banned in the workplace.'

Fortunately, Ingham goes on to provide examples of how social media can actually improve collaboration based on his attendance at Enterprise Social Media conference in London. I’m thrilled to hear that more and more people are ‘getting it.’

I did a search for wikis + human resources and came across a blog - Steve Boese's HR Technology. Steve teaches a graduate course HR technology. Again, am glad to see that academia is joining the Web 2.0 bandwagon.

In 2008, Steve had given his students an assignment to create a wiki for the fictitious company he’d created for them. He wrote the work he received “hammered home the point for me that HR staffs, no matter how small, or seemingly technologically unprepared, can effectively utilize Wiki for numerous purposes. My students built the foundation for a decent small company intranet in about 6 weeks -- with no prior experience, all in their free time.”

I’m left thinking…hooray! When these grad students enter the workforce or expand their roles in the workforce, they will have a tremendous leg up on others.

They are a number of clear benefits of wikis to HR departments. First off, just think about what happens to individuals’ knowledge and information when they leave the company. It doesn’t matter if someone’s been fired or retires. In many companies, when someone leaves the company, valuable knowledge gets lost and isn’t often recovered.

Why? Because “email is where knowledge goes to die.” (from:http://twitter.com/bfrench)

Wikis keep data out of the email hole.

Ingham reported that Virgin Media, Santander, Axa, Asda and Pfizer are all using social media to engage and connect their employees. He writes: “For Helen Farrar, head of internal communications at Virgin Media, one of the main benefits of social media is moving "water cooler conversations" into the public arena. This helps the company engage its people in "an entirely different way" as well as gaining a good understanding of what people are thinking and feeling.”

Wikis are also tremendously beneficial for HR as a central repository for policies, procedures, documentation and employee communication. Internal newsletters can be a thing of the past – companies can post all relevant news and information to the wiki and push it to everyone. Letter from the president? Post it to the wiki, or put more stylishly -- Wikify it!

Plus, wikis can help put a face to a name – particularly useful for large, global companies or those with multiple offices where staffers don’t always get a chance to meet their colleagues.

Let's hope more HR people and others embrace the idea of wikis in HR!

Enterprise 2.0 Conference Musings

My company, eTouch SamePage, opted out of exhibiting this year at Enterprise 2.0 Conference San Francisco. I did, however, take to the Moscone Center and check out the event. After a day there attending only the keynotes and walking around the expo hall -- no, I didn't spring for a full conference pass, so I missed the smaller, more targeted discussions -- I can honestly say that I don't regret not exhibiting this year.

That's not to say the event was bad. It wasn't. Good things will always come out of getting industry thought leaders in one place at one time. There were interesting discussions scheduled as breakout sessions and some of the keynotes and panels, particularly the Andrew McAfee-led Booz Allen Hamilton case study, was in-depth for a general panel and offered good insight into corporate thinking.

But in walking the expo floor and milling about in the hall, I didn't feel any great energy or excitement. The expo floor, even combined with VoiceCon, was small without any tremendous standouts. Clearly, that's dictated primarily by the current economic climate - vendors just don't have the extra cash these days to exhibit. Or, if they do exhibit, it's pretty barebones. What I'm talking about is just excitement, a buzz in the air that you often feel at events like this. It comes from entrepreneurs with great ideas and potential clients itching to learn more with journalists and analysts trying to get as many details as possible. Walking around the conference, I didn't feel it.

I've been reading tons of post-even wrap-ups by journalists, bloggers, etc. I'm not the only one with this opinion; although some say there's a rationale for it. Tony Byrne of CMS Watch writes:

"My first observation is that the conference vibe was much more practical, and much less like a religious revival meeting than previous Enterprise 2.0 events. Some gurus complained about a lack of passion and energy, but I think Andrew McAfee set a great tone in his keynote when he exhorted the audience to replace liberation theology with more realistic goals."

Oliver Marks wrote about his post-conference thoughts and posted a video of a discussion between him and McAfee.

I know there's a lot more coverage out there, and I look forward to reading more. Perhaps that's where the excitement will come....after everyone's thoughts have had a chance to simmer, and conversation follow-up moves into high gear as new relationships flourish. There was a lot of brainpower and entrepreneurship in the Moscone Center for those few days, obviously. And I am very excited to see what happens as the discussions continue.

What did you think of Enterprise 2.0 San Francisco?



Follow our discussion on Twitter at @samepagewiki.

Death Sounds So Final

There are regular blog posts, tweets and discussions about the purported 'death of email.' Talk of 'death' is a lot more morbid and frightening than saying 'decrease' or 'dwindle' or some other much less dramatic word. Ooooh, beware the decrease of emails. Nope, doesn't do a thing. You?

In a recent post on the Enterprise 2.0 blog, Stowe Boyd wonders what dead means, exactly, when we talk about the death of email?

According to Boyd, he first talked about the death of email in 2004-2005 and was nearly 'tarred and feathered.' Still, today he sticks with his original hypothesis that email will slowly, but surely disappear. He writes:

"In time, it will fall off the edge, like fax is now that we can scan and send attachments more easily than using dedicated fax machines. We will find that email will be left with a short list of uses, like monthly mailing from the bank, or travel intineraries from Expedia. These relative impersonal communications with companies will be the final resting ground for email, and then, even that will wink out when a better metaphor for social interaction with companies becomes dominant. And I doubt that we will miss it when it’s gone, either."

Boyd refers to a recent article by Jessica Vascellaro article in The Wall Street Journal that begins, "Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over.. "

As new tools develop for the enterprise, perhaps it will become more easy for the average, non-social-media saavy user to find ways to communicate electronically that aren't email. Then it will become more accepted -- as the fax machine did. Most of these 'replacement' tools are so new, it will be a while before we see what sticks. And there are so many new tools, it can be overwhelming for people.

When our team here at SamePage is thinking about wiki enhancements, we take into consideration the needs of all types of workers - those email-reliant included. We look for ways to better connect the dots for email users to newer technologies, like a wiki. We strive to keep it simple with features that more easily integrate email and the wiki so the central repository can be built up and real conversations can happen.

Jessica inserts a bit of editorial at the tail end of her article. She writes:

"But there's another way to think about all this. You can argue that because we have more ways to send more messages, we spend more time doing it. That may make us more productive, but it may not. We get lured into wasting time, telling our bosses we are looking into something, instead of just doing it, for example. And we will no doubt waste time communicating stuff that isn't meaningful, maybe at the expense of more meaningful communication. Such as, say, talking to somebody in person."

But in-person vs. electronic communications? Well, that's just a whole 'nother bag of worms.

Built for Collaboration; Ready to Work

Armen Grigorian, a manager at Defoe Fournier and Company, merchant bankers since 1824, have used a wiki for more than two years, and Grigorian loves it.

“We needed a way for people to collaborate on projects. All our projects have at least six people involved,” said Grigorian. In a company of a dozen people, half the employees work together on each project. The problem is, those employees are scattered around, between headquarters in New York City, Atlanta, Rochester, Pittsburgh, and even Armenia.

Grigorian continues with a description that sounds like most small businesses. “There's no real IT department or money to develop a custom application. We rely on typical tools for small businesses, like Excel and Word from Microsoft. We're all finance and accounting people who can just barely use a computer.”

Defoe Fournier needs to keep all their working documents per project in a central place where everyone can get to them from anywhere, securely. SamePage makes it easy for Grigorian and his coworkers to organize their documents per project, keep track of documents as they change, and store files for finished projects so they're out of the way yet still easily accessible.

“When we start a new project, I assign someone to start it, and I allocate the jobs and access to the project files,” said Grigorian. “We have pages for each project with discussions and notes. Sometimes we have live discussions by invitation, or people can comment later.”

______________________________________________________
Excerpted from a Network World article written by James Gaskin. Read the rest at: http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2009/030909gaskin.html

Social Media is Good for Business

People who use the Internet for personal reasons at work are about 9 percent more productive that those who do not, according to a recent University of Melbourne study that I read about on ReadWriteWeb.

According to the study of 300 workers, 70% of people who use the Internet at work engage in Workplace Internet leisure browsing (WILB) a term coined by study author Dr. Brent Coker.

People who do surf the Internet for fun at work - within a reasonable limit of less than 20% of their total time in the office - are more productive by about 9% than those who don't," said Dr. Coker. It helps to sharpen workers' concentration

Lest anyone think the study is suggesting a lot of internet surfing at work, the survey did report the obvious. Coker said those who behave with Internet addiction tendencies will have a lower productivity than those without.

Is this useless information? Or should companies take some of it to heart?

There are plenty of companies out there that block employees’ access to Facebook, MySpace and other social sites. Certainly, unblocking these sites is not going to solve productivity issues.

However, as more companies integrate enterprise 2.0 and social media solutions into the workplace, it may behoove them to bear these study results in mind. Certain tools, such as enterprise wikis for online collaboration and knowledge management, can allow employees to incorporate a bit of their personality and self-expression within the confines of a ‘corporate’ environment. So during their WILB time, employees can interact online with colleagues, share news and information, and give their brains a little rest before they start working again more productively.

More and more enterprise tools are incorporating social-media elements. Maybe these engineers have known this whole time!

Hear the full audio interview or watch an interview with Dr. Brent Coker.

From Email’s Cold, Hard Grasp

In the United States, more than $650 billion a year in productivity is lost because of unnecessary interruptions, predominately mundane matters, according to Basex. The firm says that a big chunk of that cost comes from the time it takes people to recover from an interruption and get back to work.

And that doesn’t even say anything about time wasted from spam and junk emails, ‘thank you’ emails, BCC emails you got ‘just in case,’ because Rob is trying to cover his back and so on. Email has a strong grasp on us; there’s no denying it. And there’s no denying its value in many business instances.

In a recent article in the NY Times, Luis Suarez, a self-proclaimed social computing evangelist with IBM wrote: I Freed Myself From E-Mail’s Grip. “I quickly realized that the more messages you answer, the more messages you generate in return,” he wrote.

And millions silently nodded their heads in agreement.

Luis is focusing on using other, new technologies to increase productivity. He’s talking about creating an online environment that fosters collaboration allows people to reclaim their productivity. He’s not spouting ideas that you should stop emailing your mother in South Africa. He’s simply saying, see what else is out there and see if you can shift your communications to other tools.

And maybe, just maybe, the professional masses will find that email is not always the best solution.

Gartner Analysts Want Web 2.0 at Work

In a recent article on eWeek.com , a journalist delved into the argument of two Gartner analysts who say that Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other social applications that allow for messaging and collaboration in the workplace should not be banned.

It’s a fine line for employers to walk – to allow social networking sites or not in the workplace. They can be time sinks, of course. And I agree with the reporter who writes: “Some people spend so much time on these networks that their use of social apps could impede productivity.”

But still, it is important to note that employees like the give and take of creative and collaborative online environments. It’s the way the world is moving. So why can’t employers embrace it and put Web 2.0 technologies to work for them?

That’s part of what makes enterprise wikis so exciting. Employees can have the instant gratification of sharing information online with their friends/co-workers. Yes, it’s work focused, but employers can define areas that allow employees to have a little more fun with the wiki and to enjoy using the technology. For example, employers can create a community area for staff to create their own pages in. Community policing and the wisdom of crowds inevitably ensure that only appropriate content is created and disseminated through Web 2.0 technologies.

Kudos to Web 2.0 innovators that create Wikis and blog for ensuring harmonious social networking tools within the Enterprise.