OK, one more thing before I rush to the airport. You know, I’ve said it’s about the networking when going to conferences – both on site and virtually.

For the latter documenting and live-blogging & -tweeting an event is essential as it gives the people who are remote a chance to participate in the event. Here, an etiquette needs to be followed when live tweeting (avoid noisy keyboards, add suitable and clever hashtags, keep the signal-noise-ratio sensible while still filling the back-channel with (first hand) information and valuable front-line impressions, don’t tweet behind the back of the presenters).

Overall the rule seems to be – don’t waste the time of your audience. Keep it short, that’s why it’s over and out for now.

Luckily Stephanie jotted down some live notes, check them out – I earmarked Danah’s take on the Internet as “bringing diverse people together mechanism”, by enhancing visibility overall. Indeed platforms like Twitter are potentially “demasking mechanisms” – exposing prejudices, narrow-mindedness and :

People move to gated communities to get away from different people and not have to deal with them but the internet is bringing all these people together. We might not want to be in such a mixed space.

[...]

We’re making all sorts of parts of society visible, parts we like and others we don’t.

Yes, there’s a number of necessary conversations that we need to have: from questions of online privacy and security, to how we deal with the visibility of hurtful and harmful things on social networks. Lots of real web issues indeed …

Let’s see, we all know toolsets they are fascinating, and as I’ve just set up my new travelling machine, ie. an ultra-portable 10,1″ screen laptop, it’s time to do a write-up for my other machines as well. These include home office workstations, ranging from desktop machines and servers to the notebook and the netbooks. So below you will find my short list of collaboration and communication tools and set-ups. For consultants this seems to be easy only at first sight (yes, of course mobile and on-site work is an important element), but my tools comprise much more than a mobile phone, a laptop with Powerpoint and a dark suit.

Now, fascinating tools aren’t the only reason for this post, there are at least two more: some time ago Ute linked to a survey by Dirk on what is the ideal IT-workers workplace, and last week I’ve been to the first meeting in the planned Stuttgart CoWorking space. As we’ve been dicussing what one needs for a likeable and efficient workplace (from coffee corners, open office spaces vs. silent single rooms, meeting rooms and a library) some other recent posts I earmarked lately were creeping up. And these are shining a little light on the trends and future of distributed knowledge work, and maybe even on the nature of work on the web …

Lilia Efimova wonders what happens when “[...] we move from a physical space into a digital one. [...] First is about understanding what is missing when the work becomes distributed [...] The second one is about emergent solutions – articulating how exactly tools facilitate things ‘around work’ that enable it.”. Here I think that she touches base with the CoWorking idea: “name [...] those things – those that provide us with time, space, opportunities and excuses to engage into informal and non-goal oriented interactions. Are they spaces? activities? contexts? structures?”. I can live happily with the notion of coworking space, but it’s of course also about adaptive contexts that allow for the emergence of structures and coordinated activities.

Then Domic Basulto identified 5 top trends for the new way to work (“creativity and innovation are more valued by employers people than ever before and the traditional notion of work as merely an economic activity is being supplemented by ideas about happiness and well-being”). Obviously it’s been me who deleted employers and replaced it with people.

Yes, and I think that toolsets and work configurations are essential to living and working happily and productively. Even more for a collaboration and Enterprise 2.0 consultant who should test and evaluate the future of work first-hand …

So here’s how a productive and happy workspace looks for me:

This is my home office setup, three screens, two computers (server and desktop), a large desk, decent lighting (ergonomics is important, there’s a window to the left but on a winter’s morning it’s of little use). You don’t see the coffee machine, you don’t see the packed bookshelves to my right and you don’t hear the music playing in the background.

Then there’s the (software) technology configuration, ie. all the tools I use and employ (like Nancy I wonder if by looking at one person’s personal technology configuration, you can get a sense of what a community’s tech configuration might be). Well, here’s my microcosm:

• my blogs are the centerpieces of my online world (both are running WordPress, besides frogpond there’s BMID)
• Personal and business wikis – both are running Dokuwiki – this is my intranet and extranet
• Gmail (two accounts, one private one, another one on Google Apps for everything business related), together with Google Docs, Google Reader, Google Sites and Google Wave
• Skype and Pidgin on the machines below Ubuntu 9.10, Empathy on the 9.10 desktop. For IRC, Google Talk and Jabber stuff.
• Twitter and identi.ca
• Posterous
• Tumblr
• delicious
• friendfeed
• Xing, LinkedIn, Facebook and a myriad of other webservices
• and last not least some P2-themed WordPress-powered blogs at various points both in the intranet and the extranet (for communication and collaboration with a range of individuals from a range of networks)
• …

All this is managed and accessed by

• GNU/Linux machines (I have XP dual boot set-up on the laptops, alas), Ubuntu Server 8.04 LTS, Desktop 9.04 and 9.10. Gnome mostly.
• a nice selection of browsers (Firefox, Chromium, Opera, Midori)
• and Adobe AIR powered Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop – still installed, but hardly used, sorry Loic
• plus – and obviously because these are GNU/linux machines – there are some other tools that make up my configuration – mostly the standard desktop stuff like Filezilla, Gimp, Open Office or Inkscape, but also more consultant’s work tools like OpenProj, Dia and Freemind.

The funny thing now is that my setting is both really bound to my home-office physical location (these screens aren’t really mobile), and really virtual at the same time.

Being digital in the configuration of tools (mail, web services and all) makes it easy to be productive on the road and it’s lightweight. See, setting up the new travelling machine comprised nothing more than a clean install of Ubuntu 9.10, the setup of AIR and Tweetdeck and the addition of more geeky browsers (Opera and Chromium). Everything else is sitting happily on various servers, making it really easy for me to kick in an odd day in a coworking space, at the client’s site, at a conference or whereever my knowledge worker life takes me …

I need and enjoy it that way but I also guess that it’s a growing trend with others as well?

Den ursprünglichen Plan entlang der IBM Social Software Guidelines verschiedene Aspekte anzureißen und in eine interaktive Diskussion zu kanalisieren haben wir kreativ neuinterpretiert und – das Feedback der Zuhörer aufgreifend – etwas modifiziert.

In jedem Fall waren wir authentisch, und das Feedback war positiv. Stefan schreibt von einem “sehr lebhaften und interessanten” Workshop, bei dem es sich lohnen würde ihn auszubauen und zu erweitern. In der Tat, wir könnten mehr Zeit gebrauchen und füllen: Das Thema Social Media in Unternehmen bietet verschiedenste Ansatzpunkte für weiterführende Workshops (oder wenn man so möchte Ansatzpunkte für konzeptionelle Hilfestellung, grundsätzliche Ratschläge und Erfolgsfaktoren), ob man nun den Schwerpunkt eher auf Breite oder Tiefe legt ist nicht so entscheidend, bzw. kann jeweils an das Publikum angepasst werden.

Erfolgversprechend bleibt aus meiner Sicht der (spezielle) Ansatz die (IBM) Social Software Guidelines auf Empfehlungen für das Agieren im Social Web “abzuklopfen” – zum einen weil die interne Kommunikation in Blogs, Social Networks und Intranets ein gutes Übungsfeld für das Agieren im Internet sein kann, zum anderen weil sich die Grenzen zwischen “hier Intranet” und “dort Internet” ohnehin auflösen. Der Dialog im Social Web geschieht quasi auf einem veränderlichen Spielfeld, entsprechend müssen die Social Media Guidelines flexibel und adaptiv gestaltet sein. Sie sind eben weniger feste Regeln, denn Handlungsempfehlungen und -heuristiken.

Interessant in diesem Zusammenhang sind die verschiedenen rechtlichen und kommunikativen Fragen, die sich rund um Social Media Guidelines ergeben. Dr. Carsten Ulbricht von Diem & Partner hat hier zusammen mit Saim Alkan von aexea einen sockeb Leitfaden für das “digitale Miteinander” diskutiert (hier als pdf):

[der] Fachaufsatz „Social-Media-Guidelines für Unternehmen – Regeln für das digitale Miteinander“ zeigt, wie Unternehmen das Verhalten und die Kommunikation ihrer Mitarbeiter auf den neuen Medien regeln können und dürfen.

Technology pundit Mike Elgan says we’re evolving a new paradigm for the workplace as technology makes it easier for white collar workers to engage in location-independent employment. These “digital nomads” will be able to travel the world or go to locations where there are partners or customers for both personal reasons and on behalf of the company.

Found via Experientia (“Technology will allow us to become digital nomads“)

Yes, the online, networked generation, working in geographically dispersed teams must and will make broad use of collaboration tools for work purposes. And as these tools are becoming cheaper it helps too (now, I doubt whether we will really see low-cost web conferencing as soon as Mike Elgan says – yet it’s no problem, teamworking with fellow digital nomads is probably a bit easier than regular corporate collaborative work …)

Posted via web from frogpond’s posterous

What is the intention? Well – the whole E2.0 SUMMIT is about bonding the European community around the E2.0 topic. Therefore we are already provide the weblog at blog.enterprise2open.com as well a newly Posterous blog at e20summit.posterous.com. All the actions are aggregated on our FB page – with that we hope to provide some value to the E2.0 discussion.

Facebook page to both connect the E20SUMMIT community and collect information and discussions about the conference.

Posted via web from enterprise2open

As if the world needed more microblogging services we present the Socialtext Microbloggin Appliance, a rack server that basically builds out social networking and microblogging applications instantly inside an Intranet.

Hmm, I don’t know if I like the Twitter in a box approach – ok, everything stays behind the firewall, yet it’s not a bargain, making it harder to justify the spending. And consultants to make it all work and implemented aren’t included (puh

Posted via web from frogpond’s posterous

German language post ahead:

Dies hier passt genau zu meinem zweiten Workshop – wenn es um Social Media Monitoring geht wird es sicher auch darum gehen wie sich Unternehmen zu Bloggern verhalten und positionieren. Dass Blogger durchaus Interesse an (Unternehmens-)informationen haben ist klar, wichtig ist aber dass die Spielregeln stimmen (ob Vodafones Aktivitäten dieser Woche hier stimmig sind überlasse ich der Einschätzung der geneigten Leserschaft).

Lesenswert sind auf jeden Fall auch die Überlegungen von  Björn Negelmann zum Strukturwandel in der PR, sprich der PR 2.0, u.a. zum notwendigen Paradigmenwechsel:

Diskutiert mal also den Aspekt der “Public Relations” bzw. der “Kommunikation” im Umfeld des Social Web, muss man zunächst den Paradigmenwechel verstehen, um dann die Maßnahmen vor diesem Hintergrund richtig gestalten zu können.

Hier aber zuerst die Ergebnisse der text100-Umfrage:

Und speziell auf Deutschland bezogen:

Check them out.

Mit dem Google Search Wiki (gefunden via TQU und netzwertig) können angemeldete Benutzer die Reihenfolge ihrer Suchergebnisse für eine bestimmte Suchanfrage verschieben, löschen, hinzufügen und Ergebnisseiten mit Notizen versehen können (ähnlich wie es Wikia und Mahalo mit Social Search anstreben). Interessant – kollaborative Entdeckung und Empfehlung (digg-like) als erweiterte Suche? Ja, analog wird auch für RSS mehr Personalisierung gefordert:

As Web content becomes more granular, compositional, and personalizable (not to mention more perishable), subscribability becomes a design consideration. Users want to be able to opt into dynamic content. [...] it’s no longer enough just to let users save queries; they now need to be able to subscribe to their queries (or the content generated by them).

Via Stewart Mader habe ich den neuesten Forrester Report zu Enterprise 2.0 (Enterprise Web 2.0) gefunden. Die vollständige Analyse ist umfangreich und kostenpflichtig (ja, wie oben gesagt) – aber einen wichtigen Punkt fasst Stewart schon ganz gut zusammen: “wikis are transforming collaboration“:

[...] One of the more promising of the Web 2.0 technologies for the enterprise, wikis show good evidence of helping transform collaboration in the enterprise. Users report success with many wiki endeavors when they’re sponsored by business leaders and connected to business processes.

Und um wieder mit Forrester zu argumentieren: Verteilte Teams profitieren besonders von (Real-Time) Collaboration Tools – auch wenn sicher nicht alle Kommunikation in real-time geschehen muss. Aber die Unterstützung reichhaltiger, kontextgerechter Interaktionen (Ted Schadler spricht von pervasiveness, aus meiner Sicht bestehen zudem weitere Anknüpfungspunkte wie “reach” und “ambient intimacy”) ergänzt die Zusammenarbeit in Wikis ideal. Es ist also schlüssig dass Micro-Sharing und -Blogging, sowie “federated, cloud-based collaboration platforms” wie Forrester schreibt an Interesse gewinnen.

First round of sessions at BarCamp sunday, I’m in the session with Ralf from bleeper.de. Will see if there’s something new, esp. given that I’ve been to another intro session with Markus Heurung lately at the BarCamp Stuttgart.

Basic notion and one good answer on “Why microblogging?” – well, yes, it’s more dynamic, more social, it’s providing a room for ambient intimacy.

So far let’s start with some notes:

- open source project laconi.ca
- big four: Jaiku, Pownce, Twitter, Plurk
- 5 mio microblogging users now
- bleeper is a laconi.ca implementation which also supports OpenId
- the big four are basically closed systems, you can’t switch easily between services and it’s hard to communicate with users on other services than your own. And yes, history repeats itself #email #microblogging #bcberlin3)
- data portability is an issue, yes, it’s not only about my connections, i.e. friends and followers, it’s more or less about all the content I’ve entered (see, as of today I’ve done +2000 updates …)

Enter laconi.ca – Open Source Microblogging (and enter identi.ca – “mother of all laconi.ca installations”

- Apache/PHP5/MySQL
- Affero GPL (AGPL)
- Open Microblogging Protocol for federation (cross server spreading is both distributing the load and the “dependency”)
- OpenID
- Creative Commons Licensing for the updates
- there’s new functionalities coming up, like you will be able to transfer your complete “package” to other services, there will be a Facebook connection, an OpenSocial interoperability and multimedia (Pownce-like) goodness, …

Now some interesting experiences Bleeper had with laconi.ca
- “the dark past of laconi.ca installations – 0.4 ish nightmares” – today it’s much better, the aim of laconi.ca is easy installation, kind of WordPress-easyness)

Here’s a short summary of the pre-conference interview (alas, german language) Joachim Niemeier did with Christian Kuhna, Head of Internal Communications of the adidas Group

The interview dealt with

• usage areas of Enterprise 2.0 at Adidas
• Adidas current intranet situation, and the aims and goals they are pursuing
• who is engaged as an inner-company proponent of Enterprise 2.0
• Mr.Kuhna’s expectations for the upcoming Enterprise 2.0 Forum
• and more

Interesting stuff in there, some notes:

• Mr. Kuhna’s professional background is in communication, he also has some experience in leveraging intranets and internal communities in M&A situations, i.e. the Daimler-Chrysler. Interestingly, he’s sometimes reminded by the “Enterprise 2.0 hot topics of today” of all the things that were envisioned before.
• Adidas is aiming for a global intranet portal, which integrates a round of Web 2.0 ideas and technologies. Up to now they’re having a variety of heterogenuous intranets, which makes it hard for employees to find information, etc. Starting from this situation Adidas decided for a fresh start – and they’ve come far by now – during the next months the scattered solutions will be replaced by the new integrated intranet.
• Adidas’ employees already have some experience with social networks and platforms (Xing, Facebook etc.) and the intranet team leveraged these competencies. He stressed the importance of easy participation, helping adoption off the ground. Yes, getting a voice on the intranet is getting easier and it’s no longer a monopoly of IT departments – we need to allow for easy, free-form, adaptive and emergent design of interaction and participation means. Now, we can be sure that this will also add considerable complexity …
• How to explain the benefits of Enterprise 2.0 to senior executives? Mr. Kuhna recommends to start with demonstrating the changed nature of (internet based) communication and the emergence of communities. Sounds like a good idea – senior executive support is vital, complementing grass-roots adoption.
• How will Enterprise 2.0 change organizations? Mr. Kuhna sees most of the changes as rather evolutionary, even when the actual speed of change is impressive. Yet I am not sure if I support this all the way, I guess it depends on how we define “most of the changes” – to me, some current changes in the context of 2.0 are going deep (well, whole industries are disrupted, but for Adidas it may yet be another thing)
• One last thing that’s worth noting – one of Mr.Kuhna’s wishes for the future of Enterprise 2.0 at Adidas concerns „Budget“. Nothing new on that front obviously – awareness and understanding is nice, but budgets get the thing rolling …

Social capital theory nicely explained, that is, citing Bill:

Dr. Nan Lin,  professor of Sociology at Duke University, defines social capital as the ability to locate and mobilize resources within your network. It’s not just who you know, it’s who will actually invest effort to help you towards your goals.

In this video, Common Craft teaches the basics of social capital theory. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear aspects of Nan Lin’s social capital model, Ronald Burt’s structural holes theory, and Mark Granovetter’s “strength of weak ties.” [...]

Joe Kraus, director of product management at Google, believes every killer app on the web — instant messaging, e-mail, blogging, photo-sharing — has succeeded because it helps people connect with one another. For Kraus, this means the Internet has an inherently social character, but it can be enhanced further. Wharton legal studies professor Kevin Werbach spoke with Kraus recently about the socialization of the Internet. Kraus will speak about social computing at the Supernova conference in San Francisco on June 16.