Wuhan China Says Hello

Dennis D. McDonald
China, , Wuhan
So this morning when the Skype tone was heard I checked the caller’s Skype profile. It was Benny in China (not his real name). I admit I thought to myself, “Oh great, another crank call,” so I kept working. But I started to think about the call and thought, hey, what if it’s real? I have great memories of working in China. Why not answer the call?”

Lotus Notes and the Importance of Not Ruling Out Entrenched Platforms

Dennis D. McDonald
Enterprise 2.0, IBM, Industry Analysis, Web 2.0
One of the more interesting blog comment series I've read recently is the ongoing discussion about Lotus Notes over at Rod Boothby's Innovation Creators blog. A couple of weeks ago Rod posted Lotus Notes - The Asbestos of Enterprise IT. In it he lambasted Lotus Notes' usability, among other things. This has led to some back and forth - and mudslinging - that when read in the right light tells us a lot about the advantages entrenched platforms have in large corporations when they compete with up-and-coming Web 2.0 "newcomers."

Writely Becomes Google Docs & Spreadsheets

Dennis D. McDonald
Collaboration, Google, Web Office
I learned yesterday that last night a Writely “planned outage” was planned so I rushed to make necessary modifications before I emailed the sponsor tha a new version was available for his inspection. I need not have worried. The planned time, midnight Eastern time, came and went without a hiccup. One moment I was using Writely. The next moment I was using “Google Docs & Spreadsheets” and Writely was no more.

Evolving Social Bookmarking Tools for the Corporate Markets

Dennis D. McDonald
Blogging, Bookmarks, Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Expertise Management, Knowledge Management, Personal Data Management, , Tagging, Web 2.0, Web Office
Luis Suarez recently blogged and podcasted about social bookmarking services. He highly recommends BLINKLIST, a service that I have not used. I have been using RAWSUGAR, COGENZ, and CONNECTBEAM, so I also have been forming some personal opinions about social bookmarking.

Using Technology to Bridge Generational and Other Gaps

Dennis D. McDonald
Collaboration, Demographics, Enterprise 2.0, Management Tools, Web 2.0
I learned basic data analysis techniques by studying the relationship between demographics and political opinion poll responses. As an undergraduate in a graduate Political Science course at Ohio State University I used 80 column punch cards (send me an email if you don't know what that means) to instruct an IBM mainframe computer to crosstabulate age, sex, income, and race data with voting behavior and political opinions. Now you can do the same stuff online with little more than an Internet connection and a browser.
Introducing Collaboration Technologies to the Enterprise is a Challenge

Introducing Collaboration Technologies to the Enterprise is a Challenge

Dennis D. McDonald
Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0
One of the interesting topics that came up several times at last week’s The New New Internet conference here in Northern Virginia was the challenge of how to introduce collaborative tools into an organization. This is a topic that is well reviewed in a recent post by Shawn Callahan in the Anecdote web site titled Why People Don’t Use Collaborative Tools.

The Justification of Enterprise Web 2.0 Project Expenditures

Dennis D. McDonald
Cost Analysis, Enterprise 2.0, Strategic Planning, Strategy, Web 2.0, Web Office
Given the difficulty of doing Return on Investment (ROI) analysis for IT projects, how do you justify an Enterprise Web 2.0 project? In a comment he left on my How Much Will Your Enterprise Web 2.0 Project Cost? post, Vinnie Mirchandani suggested that one place to start would be to look at the criteria used in the past for evaluating large IT investments.
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