The Workplace Blog

Google has been increasing its presence within the enterprise. Now it is important to keep in mind that Google has a miniscule enterprise presence compared to Microsoft. But this is probably what’s pushing Google to be more innovative.

Apps for your domain bundles existing Google applications that you can use in your organization. The free beta service gives you personalized email addresses, instant messaging, calendar and web page building features. When looked at in conjunction with the Google OneBox program, it becomes obvious who they’re targeting - intranet managers who are tired of having to manage their own infrastructure.

At this stage, it is hard to tell what new features Google will add. I wouldn’t be surprised if the enterprise version of Google Apps for Your Domain includes an employee telephone directory integrated with Google Maps, blogging functionality leveraging Google’s blogging product and analytics from Google’s analytics tool. In addition, they’ll probably offer advertising on these hosted intranets and dashboard features using Google OneBox.

And that’s not all, the intranet solution will most certainlyinclude their enterprise search product and maybe even Google Docs & Spreadsheets. Now why can’t they just call this an intranet solution?

Not long ago Jerry Bowles at Enterprise Web 2.0 wrote about blogging and Avenue A | Razorfish’s perspective on it. He also highlighted our Corporate Intranet Best Practices Report in his piece. You can find his comments at Enterprise Web 2.0.

We’re all encouraged to adopt web 2.0 philosophies and technologies. In fact, soon we’ll reach a point where a company that isn’t embracing web 2.0 will be considered behind the times. But amid this hype, people often forget the transaction costs involved in adopting something new.

According to economic theory, everytime a product or service changes hands in a free market, transaction costs are incurrred. The amount of these costs depends on the type of transaction and the amount of information that the buyer and the seller may have at that time. Information systems are often designed with the expressed purpose of reducing some of the transaction costs within an organization.

However, when you design a system to reduce the transaction costs it may infact create new uncertainities and through that new transaction costs. These new costs can be higher than the gains realized by introducing the new system. This may well be the case with certain web 2.0 influences.

For example, creating a participatory environment in which employees can collaborate and share information in an easy to use manner is healthy. But it may serve as a major distraction. The wrong types of information maybe shared or other more pressing business priorities may get ignored if your employees are spending too much time collaborating on tasks that aren’t necessarily that important.

Therefore, when adopting web 2.0 technologies in your organization, think hard about the current and future transaction costs involved. Think about the new uncertainities created and how your organization will need to manage them.

As a follow up to Ray’s post, the actual laptop in the one laptop per child program (olpc) is supposed to only cost $100 and funding is to be provided for by the governments that purchase the laptop. However, News.com is reporting in an article titled, “A $100 laptop prototype for $150” that the cost is actually much higher.

Why should we care about the OLPC program? As people working in IT, many of us believe that technology can have a positive impact on development. We want projects like the OLPC program to succeed and believe that the costs will come down quickly. We hope that governments will adopt the innovative technologies and use them to help bridge one of the many digital/educational divides.

But as Jonathan Zittrain said in a recent lecture on the program, more challenging will be to create free or near free context specific educational and business software that will make this technology meaningful. Simply exporting software that we use in our offices or homes in the west to villages in Africa will not work. What is needed is sociologists and technologists working together to understand what software makes sense. And ideally speaking, those people should be from Africa itself.

Nicholas Carr and Larry Lessig are arguing about the definition of web 2.0. I side with Larry on this debate. The values (primarily true sharing) of web 2.0 are of supreme importance, web 2.0 is not just about making money off someone’s free labour as Nick Carr implies. True sharing which enables users to move the content they create is a strong web 2.0 value.

The definition of web 2.0 is an evolving one. It is about values, remixing and new technologies that support the remixing by participants. You have to let go, to let your web 2.0 product grow. If you’re not willing to let go, ask yourself why exactly you’re building the web 2.0 product. Not everything has to be participatory and enhanced to allow remixing.

At the end of the day, as a manager, don’t spend too much time thinking about what web 2.0 is and what it isn’t. Don’t feel you have to create web 2.0 versions of all your websites, intranets or extranets. Instead think about the specific web 2.0 concepts that can help your business and implement those only. Start with a business case, understand your user needs and preferences, think through all the implications and build only what you truly require.

After all, there’s no use creating a web product that allows remixing if no one wants to share, is there?

What’s your best example of a web 2.0 site? Wait a minute let me rephrase that as at least my answer is usually “it depends”. Instead tell me about the newest, cool, web 2.0 site that you’ve come across. The answer for me is one created by our London company, DNA. If you find this too self-promotional, you’re welcome to close your browser window right now.

The website Be The Fullstop is for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. It literally shows how the actions of individual fundraisers, donors, campaigners, volunteers link up across the country “to create an unstoppable force against child cruelty.” Using Google Mashups, you can find out who else supports the issue in your area and why. This site isn’t about raising money, it is about creating awareness in local communities. You’re encouraged to invite other friends to participate.

To get your name on the map all you have to do is show your support by agreeing to the following statement, “I believe child cruelty can be ended and I want to get on the map and take action now.” Brilliant in my admittedly slightly biased opinion.

Last year there were conversations about mobile phones replacing credit cards. As the Europeans do, several folks thought that soon we’d be using our mobile phones to pay for sodas from vending machines and groceries from supermarkets. In fact, some believed that mobile phones were one step away from becoming virtual banks.

Well last night I heard the CEO of Visa International speak. Firstly, he doesn’t see that happening anytime soon. The reason is simple. Stores of all types around the world would need to “reterminalize” which means that they’d need to invest in the hardware to read the cellphones. Financial laws and regulations would need to change too. The phones would need to become more secure. But he did say that the cell phones play an important role and can be used innovatively. He cited Russia as an example where you get a text on your phone each time you make a major purchase on your card. You’re asked to respond to the text if you want the transaction to go through. It’s an incredibly successful way of limiting fraud.

So what’s the point? You probably have a lot of technology around you in the workplace that’s being used for things that they are supposed to be used for. Nothing wrong in that at all. However, if you think reflectively you may find new uses for the technology that can help your organization. Uses that may not be common to all organizations but nevertheless potentially transformative in their own way. It all depends on your own imagination.

While scanning my blog feeds, I came across an interesting factoid via the Tom Peters blog. The current expansion in the workforce, is the first period of economic growth that has failed to bring an increase in real wages for most workers. The value of worker benefits are also failing to keep pace with inflation. All this is happening while productivity has risen significantly (by 16.6 percent between 2000 and 2005).

In other words, most people are working a lot more and are earning less. Is technology contributing to this imbalance? I firmly believe the fact that we’re continously connected, chained to our blackberrys and email addicted, we are becoming too productive hurting our personal lives. Hopefully, the next wave of technology will make us more efficient than just productive. That way, we’ll at least have more time to spend with our families and friends. We’ll also probably be happier and richer people.

A couple of weeks ago I had an interesting conversation with Michelle Manafy of EContent Magazine. During that conversation she questioned whether Web 2.0 was anything more than hype about a few concepts that have been around for a while.

In some sense, I agree with her while at the same time, I believe things are different today because we are all taking those concepts a lot more seriously now. Michelle discusses this more in an editorial titled, “The Collective Wisdom at Work.”

I have finally stopped using a blackberry. I am more thoughtful and reflective as a result. My blackberry cannot affect my personal life anymore either. When at home, I am not thinking about work anywhere as much as I used to. I am a happier person and I have more balance in my life.

I would have guessed that others moving away from their blackberrys would have agreed. However, a recently published survey on mobile usage proves just the opposite. Most business executives insist that mobile technology has improved the balance between their work and personal lives. According ot the research, 4 out of 5 business executives are always connected to work through mobile devices. 77% of those say that it improves their work life balance as it allows them to leave work earlier and work even when they need to be at home.