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New file feeds keep your groups in synch .... by Reid Conrad.
Categorized as Public. Tagged with updates near-time rss podcast.We have just added the ability for groups to receive feeds from Near-Time file folders. Just put your group files in a folder and subscribe via RSS. When your feed reader pings Near-Time any new files will be downloaded to your system automatically. It is easier than ever to keep everyone up to date with the latest files. No more going through the mistake born process of sorting emails to find the right files. Near-Time keeps everyone up to date.
To try it out, go to the files tab and select a folder. Drag the RSS icon to your feed reader. Easy as that.
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Ajit Jaokar on Near-Time by Reid Conrad.
Categorized as Public. Tagged with blogs, near-time, podcast, reid conrad and wikis.Ajit writes about Near-Time's integrated weblog/wiki model and bringing content and context together in the collaborative process. Check it out here. Enjoy.
Ajit is a founder of futuretext, a member of the Web 2.0 workgroup, a great guy and visionary. I am looking forward to reading his new book Mobile Web 2.0. We see fabulous leverage of Near-Time as mobile applications become increasingly Web empowered. Standards based device interoperability will drive a unparalleled ease in the collaborative process.
Another major Near-Time update is now available .... and a look at what's next. by Reid Conrad.
Categorized as Public. Tagged with updates.You can access the update by logging in at www.near-time.com.
With this update, Near-Time provides essential resources to manage multiple collaborative communities, automatically organize information and share group files.
The Near-Time Dashboard. The new Near-Time dashboard provides aggregated views of your information across collaborative spaces. With the dashboard you can easily keep up to date on all activities including articles, pages, files and calendar events. Access the dashboard on the left side of the space bar (just below the browser toolbar).
Enhancements to the Files tab. You can now share files in Near-Time on a stand alone basis as well as attaching them to weblog articles and wiki pages. Of course categories and tags can be assigned to folders and files. Moreover, you can customize the Files tab by creating folders to further organize your content. Go to the files tab to try this enhancement out.
Automatic wiki home pages. In addition to creating your own wiki home pages, Near-Time now automatically generates wiki home pages contextually and by recency. Try out the “automatic” option by going to the Pages tab and visiting the “Home” page.
New, easy access for people to join your Near-Time space. You can now make it easy for members of the public to add content to your public wikis and weblogs. Managers can turn this functionality on under the access management controls available in the Overview tab.
In addition, I recommend you check out the recent review and video walkthrough of Near-Time by Robin Good of Master New Media if you have not had a chance. Also, you may want to check out my talk "Drinking the Collaboration Kool-Aid" with Dan Keldsen of the Perot Systems Innovation Labs.
Now, looking forward ... we will soon be launching roles and permissions capabilities for Near-Time. This important functionality will enable you to control authoring, editing, and commenting capabilities per user. If you would be interested in having early access to these exciting features please let us know.
In Rod Boothby's recent post, Are we there yet?, he volunteers important insight to the journey of the new Internet. Like predecessor technology waves, Web 2.0 is attracting a large cast of volunteers to the effort. While many are pushing the innovative curve, most seem to be serving up old approaches using the new technologies. This reminds me of the early days of XML when some of the first applications replicated the past technologies; organizations would implement antiquated approaches with cutting edge potential. Fortunately, other paths were taken leveraging XML to truly innovate organizations. The result, in part, was the foundation of Web 2.0.
Consider Andrew McAfee's great post defining Enterprise 2.0 - Enterprise 2.0 is the use of freeform social software within companies. To upgrade themselves, organizations need to clearly align how they work and Web 2.0 social technologies. Core elements of the social Web and the new organization are weblogs and wikis. These technology platforms drive interaction and knowledge development, while the Internet provides unprecedented access and reach.
Web 2.0 technologies are simply tools. They empower organizations to improve the "how" which upgrades the "what" they do. We find cross organizational collaboration is a great place to start in upgrading productivity with Web 2.0. New projects and classes are others.... anywhere interactive cultures are fluid and can change quickly. The journey to transform the enterprise will happen in steps. The great news is we are well on our way.
Professional interaction is all about the process of influence. We influence and are influenced. When interactive technologies hit the scale of the Internet, the range of influence hits unprecedented levels.
Charles Arthur of The Guardian wrote this week of the 1% rule, where the numbers of people creating content on the Web are a fraction of those accessing the content. My guess is that many organizations are thrilled by the scale of their reach using Web 2.0 techologies. This form of interaction is more about information sharing than collaboration. It levels the playing field in creating outreach and visibility for small and large organizations alike.
The fact that groups can even interact with the scale of the Web community alone is awesome. Weblogs and wikis truly deliver in providing users an interactive platform, no programming or complex website development needed. The fact that millions of user read them is more of a quality of social interaction than the underlying technologies themselves.
For instance, small groups of users collaborating within Near-Time show 100% particpation in weblogs and wikis. As the community grows, the percent of authors frequently is reduced but the scale of the people influenced increases. Small groups will always be more inteactive than large groups. But at times, influencing large groups is important. We see large groups break up into smaller communities, starting the interactive cycle all over. Web 2.0 enable's us to adjust the scale of interaction and influence. From 1% to 100%, the range is awesome.
Now is the time to upgrade how you and your team work with collaboration 2.0. by Reid Conrad.
Categorized as Public. Not tagged.The new Web is interactive, fluid and empowering. It is transforming traditional means of collaboration and engagement. It is transparent to how we work and live, and it is here now. The new collaborative organization is always on and globally accessible via the Web.
Businesses, academic institutions and government agencies are finding a whole new world of possibilities for engaging others through the Web. New Web technologies are providing organizations the opportunity to upgrade how they carry out their work. Consider the following observations:
- While the Web has become a powerful platform for publishing information globally, new Internet technologies are enabling groups to interact and engage with each other privately and securely.
- Authoring and sharing content on the new Web is two way and open to all. The constantly accelerating information lifecycle demands frictionless interaction and easy information creation and reuse.
- The greater the access to information sources and knowledgeable resources the better the results of collaboration. The Web is always on and everywhere.
Collaboration: Near-time Vs. Email tools
As organizations engage internal and external resources on an increasingly dispersed basis, best of class near-time collaborative tools are needed. Near-time collaboration makes sure everyone is in synch regardless of time and location. It embraces a range of non-real time formats: discussion forums, news feeds, and interactive group document editing, are examples.
To take advantage of Web 2.0, new, near-time collaborative platforms are necessary to merge business strategies with the pervasiveness and reach of the Web. This next stage of the Web is transformational for businesses, large and small, across industries.
Traditionally, organizations have had to rely on email to collaborate with colleagues, clients and partners. Email is useful for point to point messages such as “let’s meet at 10”. But when it comes to collaboration, email breaks down. From trying to find discussion threads in a sea of email, to locating the right files, to avoiding spam and viruses, email actually slows interaction. As people, information, and document versions increase, the efficacy of email decreases. Fortunately, new technologies are turning the Web into a collaborative medium (the so called read-write Web), fostering unprecedented reach and access.
Dedicated collaborative systems can also have disadvantages. Although these systems have been purpose-built to enable collaboration, in general they do not reflect the agile, standards-based, loosely coupled design philosophies native to the read write Web. Interoperability with other applications and services is thus made more difficult, reducing leverage of existing and emerging content and resources. Finally, proprietary systems can reduce the ability to create diverse communities of members. Legacy enterprise collaboration platforms can be costly, require extensive IT support and lengthy implementation cycles, and might not play well with Web standards.
Companies of communities
From internal to external resources, divisions to departments, and colleagues to clients, businesses are comprised of communities of people. As dispersed companies become the norm, outsourced services become the standard and community formulation and engagement becomes increasingly strategic. More effectively managing the interaction with customers, prospects, suppliers, and partners can result in higher revenues, lower costs and greater profitability.
Traditional intranets and extranets are not community platforms. They do not provide the flexibility necessary to create collaborative environments that enable diverse internal and external groups to come together. Collaborative platforms that are community driven blend internal and external resources, enabling organizations to more effectively create demand for the products and services they build.
The new Web enables organizations to transform their market presence and engagement. A Web presence, and infusion with Web resources ensure unprecedented reach and access. Flexibility makes it simple to bring diverse groups together, regardless of time zone or location. Moreover, discovery tools that are both content and contextually driven enable you to be “discovered” by qualified prospective customers, suppliers and partners.
Another important consideration for creating communities is the use of a hosted and secure platform. Hosted services provide common ground for internal and external organizations to come together. Hosted platforms also mean communities come together quickly and easily. No new hardware, and software on demand means your business is working smarter, faster and more cost effectively.
Web 2.0 standards drive interoperability and integration, essentials of pervasive collaboration.
Web 2.0 technologies ensure interoperability between systems, applications and information. The Web is non-proprietary; everyone is welcome. In most cases all that is needed for users to take advantage of the collaborative Web is a browser and an Internet connection. Web standards including XML, HTML, RSS, weblog API’s, and email protocols help ensure easy integration with existing applications and platforms. Interoperability provides the opportunity for intranets and extranets to come together.
Centralization of information for diverse and distributed groups is essential. By combining Web standards with a centralized, community-based platform brings diverse and distributed communities together. Standards help ensure that organizations can interact within the community with existing applications and systems.
Persistence of collaborative information enables organizations to create rich, standards-based knowledge bases as they interact with each other. Easy access to institutional memory enables organizations to improve themselves with forward thinking decision making based upon the group experiences of the past.
Web 2.0 based collaboration can also bring collaborative efforts together with the Web itself. As information lifecycles accelerate, organizations need to move rapidly to take internal collaborative efforts and make them public on the Web. The new Web is read-write and self-service. Properly leveraged, businesses can take advantage of markets with unprecedented speed and reach.
The Elements of Web 2.0
Two essential platforms for the read-write Web are Weblogs and Wikis. Weblogs, which take the form of an online journal, are great for broadcasting time-sensitive news, ideas, links, and resources. Weblogs have quickly become a powerful medium of influence, moving markets and transforming the media. While popularized as a public broadcast medium for individuals, Weblogs are increasingly playing a critical role in private group communications within the enterprise.
While Weblogs are effective in publishing content to others, Wikis enable multiple users to edit the same page of content directly within a browser. Accordingly, Wikis promote participation and interaction and provide a work-space for community-wide content collaboration. As a hypertext authoring system, Wikis offer flexible organization. By tracking all page revisions, Wikis make it easy to keep up with group iterations and enable teams to improve their work by giving them a platform for refining ideas, repurposing information and remixing content.
For these reasons, analyst firm Gartner Group predicts Wikis “will impact ad hoc collaboration, group authoring, content management, web site management, innovation, project execution and research and development” [1] and “will become mainstream collaboration tools in at least 50% of companies by 2009.” [2]
User definable metadata such as categories and tags give Weblogs and Wikis common means to associate context with content. These contextual tools have become popular on the new Web and combine to provide powerful process management and discovery capabilities. Categories are useful for filing content along topical lines—not unlike the folders used to organize your dekstop files— and serve as the primary organizational and filtering model in Weblog systems.
Tags afford more flexible metadata association. Most often tags are keywords extracted from a document for indexing purposes. Tagging has become popular in social applications like bookmarking and media sharing: as more resources are tagged, the Web becomes self-organizing, making it easy to find information according to social taxonomies. Tagging is not limited to content description, however. For example, tag information can be based on content status (“in process” or “final”) or used for personal organization and discovery (“john:to do” or “bob:favorite”).
Another core element to Web 2.0 technologies is RSS, (Really Simple Syndication). While most news services use RSS today, its use as a collaborative service for businesses is just emerging. RSS is often used in conjunction with Weblogs and Wikis. RSSRSS feeds can include contextual information including author, date, categories and tags as well as a summary of the information. RSS feeds can be subscribed to based upon both the content and contextual information, enabling users to creating multiple channels of information flow. feeds provide organizations powerful messaging services to automatically synchronize server based content with local clients.
Considerations in building successful communities
Many businesses are leveraging Web 2.0 today to create next generation relationships with their prospects, clients, supplier, dealers and partners. Applications can be many and varied: from improving customer management systems to driving next generation supply chain management, Web 2.0 is at work today.
Cross-organizational collaboration is a great place to start. Consider starting with enhancing existing sales, customer support or supply chain management systems. Whether your organization is large or small, your functional departments are ready made communities ... sales, marketing, support, R&D, shop floor, finance, human resources and so on.
Start tactically, think strategically. Get started with ad hoc collaborative initiatives. Employing Weblogs is a great way to begin. Monitor team progress and expand the groups, add content and contextualization as interaction builds. The best part of the read-write Web is its self-service nature. Refine your model as you grow.
Maximize your business communities now. Consider the diversity of groups and their overlapping needs. Make sure your Web 2.0 systems enable you to quickly create collaborative communities and to easily invite others.
Rethink your use of email and legacy systems. Developing collaborative communities can be enhanced by leveraging Web 2.0 standards. With the right Web 2.0 approach you gain contextualization, information reuse and expansive audiences.
Get started now. The new Web is here. Upgrading how your business works is just clicks away with Near-Time.
Sources:
1 http://www.gartner.com/press_releases/asset_134460_11.html
fn2. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_48/b3961120.htm
