Monday, June 30, 2008

E-mail i grew up loving you but our love affair has got to slow down

4 comments :
Dear e-mail,

i am addicted to you. it has been almost a life-long obsession that has brought me great pleasure and success and sometimes great pain as well as all great loves tend to do eventually. i have been in love since the first day i laid eyes on you on that telnet terminal so many years ago with the first welcome message. Then there was hotmail, yahoo, corporate email, gmail...first on computers that i had to go to the lab or office to read, then home computer and finally my mobile device- we are always connected you and I. There always seems to be someone on the other side unless i get an undeliverable message- but even then we communicated.

But now The New York Times along with IBMs “social computing evangelist” thinks it is time that you and I slow it down and that i free myself from your grip. I have to admit i have been working on it; you probably haven't noticed because i still get a lot of incoming messages that must be replied to and there are things i just can't do currently without you because you are the messenger of choice and yes, of course you do such a good job- no one is doubting that.

Our corporate Instant Messaging (IM) has been a big enabler to me pulling away from you but there are people who i work with that just plainly refuse to use it and our system doesn't do off line group messages so it is limiting for group communications. Then there is the issue with my corporate network that is bipolar on Skype and aggregated IM services so those outside the 'wall' have a hard time getting to me- so it is hard to have it as a communication avenue for clients and partners.

I have this blog, but the messages are public and generic enough not to get me into trouble- but i guess i can use it better to communicate my message- but how do i know that the message is getting to the right person (there is no read receipts that sometimes i send you my dear messenger with and no undeliverable alerts)- sending it to an email address at least let's me off the hook if someone 'claims' they haven't read it. I tried an internal blog, but i wasn't convinced. i guess i can try again but just haven't been feeling it. (yeah yeah keep pushing the membrane, i know)

Twitter- i have been using it communicate with some but very few coworkers- some even signed up but haven't even sent a twitt yet- guess it isn't for everyone but it is a great vehicle for keeping in touch with remote people, and keeping it personal as well as distributing one message to many (when it is up of course and lately it has been unreliable and i need reliability in my life)

I use del.icio.us the most to tag things and a long time ago i tried to get some coworkers to rely on that to see things of interest, they missed some things so i went back to sending them emails with 'check-this-out' messages. In those situations, where i want a response (even a reaction) or perhaps a 'hey why don't you check-this-out well' of course i usually get silence. i am thinking that they all must have 'daniela fatigue' so i have been keeping to myself and engaging with those who are actively participating in the conversation whether internally or externally (thanks folks!)

In the NYTs article they recommend the use of the phone- i like the phone but when i call i get voice mail mostly- unless of course i ping them on IM or email! telling them i am going to call which works beautifully. Just the other day i had lunch with someone that is younger then me (10yrs) and they said 'oh well i hate the phone as a means to communicate' as they typed a text message into their iPhone.

Just last night you and i worked off line (honestly my favorite moments you and i spend together because there are no interruptions) and then this morning i sent a boatload of emails out when i synced- of course 20 messages came back immediately- although i admit some are the 'thank you' immediate delete short lined emails which i have mixed feelings about as it is.

So i don't know- i have been thinking about our relationship since i read that NYTs article yesterday and agree something has got to give- just not sure what it is.

Have to go now- i have over 500 emails in my corporate in-box and many in my personal in-box and many to reply to so i hope you had your fortified energy drink this morning because i am planning on giving you a workout my friend.

lovingly your e-mail slave,

-daniela


Image Attribution: Simon Davison

Monday, June 23, 2008

TechCrunch Enterprise

No comments :
Back in September 2006 i excitedly blogged about news that TechCrunch was going to have an Enterprise version. I am a big TechCrunch fan because it allows me to keep myself up on the latest and greatest in consumer technology which i truly believe eventually bleeds in one form or another into the Enterprise- if it provides values to the user.

So for the last year and a half i have been blogging about the enterprise and how companies can and should leverage technologies and trends in the consumer space-many of these i find out about on Techcrunch. I have often thought about the news i had read back in 2006- but figured since i was doing such a wonderful job covering the space- Arrington didn't feel he could compete with me (this is when you fall over laughing hysterically of course!).

Well the time is now I guess and TechCrunchIT just launched with Steve Gillmor, Editor and Nik Cubrilovic as Co-Editor. From their about page:

TechCrunching the Enterprise

TechCrunchIT (TCIT) is the newest blog in the TechCrunch network. TCIT is dedicated to obsessively profiling products and companies in the Enterprise Technology space. TCIT aims to promote an understanding of emerging and existing Enterprise technologies and to analyze their commercial, social, and consumer impacts.

This new blog features a range of Enterprise-related news and analysis including applications, open standards, platforms, cloud computing, microenterprises, customer experience, legacy enterprise, social media, information management and software among other subjects. TCIT coverage includes profiles and first-person guest blogs from the people leading Enterprise Technology innovation – to further personalize the Enterprise space for the trade and consumers.

The target audience is not necessarily for early adopters or geeks but for technology and business leaders—decision makers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and influencers.

I am looking forward to the coverage (although the first few posts are a bit bla).

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Folksonomies and Taxonomies in the Enterprise- My eBook Advocating a Hybrid Approach

4 comments :
So to date- my favorite feedback on my ebook on Folksonomies and Taxonomies in the Enterprise that was launched on Sunday for the start of the Special Library Association (SLA) conference in Seattle was from a fellow co-worker. In her email she congratulated me on a job well done, that the ebook looked great and that "Maybe you can get someone to animate your character and you can get her to do some of your work for you?" Oh boy...only if i could!

I have been on the road for what seems like ages- conference season is at hand, Semantic Technologies conference, Internet Retailer and now Special Library Association- awesome stuff but boy am i behind- if only i could get my ebook avatar to indeed give me a hand.

This ebook is nothing like i have seen been produced by Factiva/Dow Jones in the 8+ years i have been here. My marketing project manager for this ebook, Kelly Minervini did a spectacular job with putting it together and i am extremely grateful to her as well as the rest of the folks that worked on the team to get this out- it is beautifully designed and laid out, fun to read and provides a great description of my thoughts around the hybrid options around Enterprises leveraging hybrid approaches to Folksonomies and Taxonomies as part of their information strategy.

This ebook is laid out as a “Cookbook” in an effort to help readers find the best “recipe” for their enterprise metadata needs. It is divided into chapters and subheads, each titled with a play on words about the art of cooking. We wanted to make it a fun piece for the audience to read, so it contains cooking/food illustrations as they relate to the taxonomy/folksonomy theory described.

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that social tagging is a topic i am very interested in as it relates to information delivery and organization.

The ebook discusses:
  • The business value of a taxonomy/folksonomy and how you can deploy a solution that will grow with an organization
  • The impact of social networking tools on the enterprise
  • The governance tools that can be or should be applied
  • How to (and if you really should) merge folksonomies with existing taxonomies
  • Best practices
  • Common challenges and obstacles

Some of the key messages and take-aways i was trying to illustrate:
  • The taxonomy versus folksonomy issue is not an “either/or” debate, but an opportunity for mutual progress. By combining the virtues of each approach into a working hybrid model, the enterprise can achieve its goal: a user-friendly system that encourages collaboration and makes information easier to find.
  • Good content management tools are not necessarily those with the most features or the greatest power, but those that encourage participation by being easy to use.
  • There is no one right way to incorporate a folksonomy into an enterprise. Instead, there are levels of engagement ranging from free and loose social tagging with little supervision to closely monitored tagging built around a tightly controlled core taxonomy. By precisely identifying your goals, you can more effectively determine the balance between community freedom and centralized control that is right for your enterprise.
  • Today, the state of enterprise folksonomies is comparable to the state of corporate intranets and portals a decade ago – a learn-as-you-go period of trial-and-error experimentation.
  • There is no end to the possibilities of a hybrid approach to enterprise taxonomies and folksonomies. In fact, the important conclusions are not the ones the ebook draw, but the ones that the reader reaches after careful consideration of their enterprise needs and ambitions.
You can download the ebook here - all download forms come directly to me, so i am not going to spam you. You will get an automatic thank you note from me. If you want to contact me directly please email me at daniela.barbosa{@}dowjones.com

Thanks again to all the great folks that helped me in finalizing this ebook and for Dow Jones for the opportunity to publish this it!