"They Speak"

Laughable: Huddle Chat Comes Down Because of Complaints?

Don't you just love the complaints (read some of the comments as well) that 37Signals has made about a pet project some Googlers made on their new app engine; Huddle Chat?

No one at Parlano (or UBS for that matter) ever complained about 37Signals (and many others) copying the original idea of persistent group chat created in the mid '90's by a group of bank developers. They used an IRC standard that helped them create a rich application that served a specific purpose. But, even they weren't doing something completely original, they simply solved an important business problem. They, and Parlano, did what smart companies do, they innovated all along the way and made an application rich in functionality and easy to deploy.

The collaboration space has gotten crowded and mature. There's still innovation to come, but not by complaining someone stole an idea. And, quite frankly, if some Googlers created this application in "their spare time" how much real advantage does something like Base Camp have anyway? Those barriers to entry are smaller than some might want to admit, at least publicly.

Users will flock to the tools and applications they like and think are best, and nothing less. Complain all you want. All that is doing is emboldening some group of developers to spend a weekend creating a basic group chat/BaseCamp knock off (probably many) eliminating any advantage they had (in reality or in their minds).

Drop My Blackberry? Not me, not yet.

Last week I had almost exactly the same experience as Matt Asay (see his blog).  My Blackberry 8820, which I love, had finally stopped taking a charge without me holding the cord in strange positions.  The side were the plug goes in had succumbed to massive re-charges and many drops, bends, and abuses.  I was out of luck and power.

I walked into my local AT&T store to find out that my Blackberry was about 45 days out of the maintenance window.  My only choice was to buy a new 8820, with Wi-Fi. Then I looked over at the iPhone.  My wife has one.  Many of my colleagues have switched.  I even have moved almost entirely to a Mac at home, so synchronization of my calendar and contacts is a bit jumbled, but manageable through Plaxo (thank you) and my other desktop PC (until I find the right Mac-Blackberry sync software).  I even love the web browsing capabilities on the iPhone (can't anyone else do that?).

I went back and forth several times before deciding to stay with the Blackberry.  I just couldn't give up the immediate email interaction...yes, I'm an email junkie.  In fact, as I was debating with the sales agent my Blackberry vibrated and I received an important email.  I was sold again. 

I was also concerned about the typing...I'm as fast a Blackberry typer as anyone alive (try keeping up with 100's of emails and dozens of real time group chats on this device each day, you become incredible capable with your thumbs!).  This is something I think I'll learn to perfect over time with an iPhone.

But in the end I did not make the switch, yet.  I know my time is coming.  As soon as the iPhone is released to support Exchange via Active Sync I know I'm likely to abandon my Blackberry for an iPhone.  The folks in Waterloo probably don't want to hear that too often, but maybe they'll come out with a new device and change the game again?

No matter what, we win.

Off The Beaten Path: Phone calls at 3A.M.?

I really hate to enter the political fray known as the democratic primary, especially as a fiscal-conservative; however...

Does anyone else think that if the phone is ringing at 3am in the White House, that it wouldn't really be Monica looking for Bill? If I were the Clinton campaign, I might be a bit more careful about the mental images they want America to draw up about what's going on in the White House at 3am under another Clinton Administration.

Recent Goings

Last week I attended TECH Cocktail on Thursday evening in Wrigleyville. The evening was quite cold and a bit of snow, but that didn't hold down more than 400-500 local technology professionals from attending. It was a great networking event. I spoke with some of the local Chicago VC's and many of the local tech leaders from the area. TECH Cocktail leaders Eric and Frank (who I have not yet met) are to be congratulated for continuing to organize and pull off such events in Chicago and other cities. Chicago is sorely lacking in local networking and leadership in the tech community and events like these help to erase that problem.

This week I'm off to the (RW) Baird 2008 Business Solutions Conference in Boston. Devin Mathews here in Chicago invited me to the event and I'm looking forward to meeting some of the public and private firms that are presenting at the conference, as well as many from the investor community that will attend. The highlight just might be the conference dinner on Wednesday evening. The guest speaker is patriot's Head Coach, Bill Belichick. After the season they just completed I'm sure there are going to be a few great stories. I wonder if the event will be taped? :)

Efficient Markets, Inefficient Pundits

When I read all the news stories and worse yet, all the blogging pundits, on how bad the proposed acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft is, I wonder what is really driving all the negative sentiment.

Businesses in all industries for many years have used acquisitions as a form of growth and global competitiveness. Some companies do it well. Some companies do not. But one truth remains relatively constant, shareholders vote with their dollars (buying and selling) based on what they believe the prospects of the deal will bring. Those votes are rather immediate, based on the information that is shared and opinions about the value creating aspects of the deal. And that evaluation continues on well after the close of any deal.

I see so much negative "stuff" written about what it means to consumers of these companies products and services, customer contractual rights, employees, and the potential acquisition pool for others (start-ups looking for these big firms to acquire them are upset that another potential suitor is gone, rather than focusing on building a sustainable business). But I see very little about how this may actually help these constituents and the acquiring firm (does anyone really think that a deal of the size of the one noted above wasn't considerably discussed and debated, and the benefits, not without risk I grant you, could be significant??)

I would like to read more stories and posts from those who qualify as experts on how any potential deal is going to help the company that is doing the buying. Shareholders of the acquired firm typically do very well based on recent stock performance...shareholders of the buying firms are the ones that raise the questions and need the answers to all of the synergistic value creation opportunities that any proposed deal might have. It helps those shareholders "vote" by buying, selling or holding their shares.

That's not to say things won't go awry in the post-merger integration activities of any deal, but markets are very quick and efficient in reacting to this insight and real information, prior to, during and after any deal. All the rest makes for great blogs and headlines, but does little or nothing to help shareholders evaluate a deal, and consumers evaluate the benefits that may accrue, or the pain that may follow.

I don't have the answers. Rather the purpose of my post was to hopefully inspire those who might, to focus on providing useful information and not simply jumping on the anti-acquisition bandwagon because its the fashionable thing to do.

Technology in the Classroom with the right Objectives

Mike Gotta recently blogged about an effort in NYC to test the effectiveness (cost and performance) of a one laptop per child environment. They blog about it here.

The effort's main issue is that..."(m)any laptop programs have failed to increase student achievement and purposeful learning because teachers have been provided with devices and training but no meaningful redesign of the instruction and curriculum now possible with the technology." I couldn't agree more.

Simply providing the technology to children or the classroom does not, in itself, change the performance of our children. Teacher training, curriculum re-development, and community support are needed to reach what should be the goal of every educational institution...that children thrive.

They go on to acknowledge that gains among the under performing students are higher/better than those of average or above average students...but all are improving. Implementations like these where no one class of children are left out of the benefits should be applauded.

The only issue I have with the way this was presented deals with the stated goals and their order. As I mentioned above, the goal of any educational institution is for their children to thrive. That's issue number one in my mind. Their first goal is listed as "Lowering the Total Cost of Ownership." While I realize that each district must be responsible for the direction and use of taxpayer funds, I believe they have to first ask, "will it help our kids" and then ask "can we afford to implement it."

I'm sure that how they considered, debated and decided on this program, and I applaud their efforts to increase the educational enhancement of all their children with the use of technology, in cooperation with the teachers and staff who are responsible to implement it. Technology is becoming and will be a major part of education in the 21st century.

"Wicked" Problem Solving: Groups or Individuals? Who's Better?

I was recently posted a link on research reported in Science Daily by a student from Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management, in the Entrepreneur department.  The title ( Complex 'Wicked' Problems Better Solved Individually Than Through Internet Groups) and findings of the linked research should be interesting to all of us who look at web/group collaboration and in general believe that multiple minds looking to solve a problem have to be better than a single mind, and that web-based, group collaboration, must be one (of many) great facilitators.

Well, if you read the research, clearly that was not the case here.  As I was reading the study for the first time, I was looking for the obvious thing we must have all been missing as we have lived, breathed and blogged about the hypothesis above.

As I got to the end, what was evident in the research as one of the central reasons for their surprising findings was the form of the tools they used.  While not exactly clear what software or functionality they were provided, it seems to suggest that relatively static web pages, with little group interaction other than possibly the latent back and forth that individual postings might allow.  Your standard single-threaded Lotus Notes Application or Sharepoint Portal pages. 

The conclusion by the researchers, I think, vindicates better forms of group/web-based collaboration by suggesting that "...in coming years 'better software, including threaded discussions with moderators to focus the work and prediction markets to evaluate quality, will become tools that large organizations will use to solve wicked problems." 

Real time, threaded group discussion that were self-moderated was at the core of Parlano's offerings.  We understood that concept from the very beginning.  But what really made it successful was the way in which you could participate in multiple discussions (or solve many "wicked problems"), at the same time.  I wish it were as easy as focusing on a single problem.  The reality is our professional careers are littered with multiple "wicked" problems/issues that require our attention to varying degrees, day to day.  Speed and resolution matter when competing, and that's exactly what persistent group chat allowed professionals to accomplish.

Sure Way to Kill IM Usage

I read where AOL AIM released a new feature that really made me think. What kind of usage will we get with IM if users can see what we are typing before we even send a message? It would be nearly like reading one's mind in response to a question, comment etc... How many of us would be willing to show our thoughts so openly? Few I think.

Thankfully, its a opt-in feature for both parties. I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that less users than the number of developers it took to code and quality test this feature, are actually going to opt-in.

The spontaneity in responsiveness with IM, which we all love, shouldn't include the immediate typing of thoughts we find ourselves doing, only to revise the words before we hit send, to avoid the vitriol responses we'd likely get from many of our initial reactions. Editing and proofing our comments, thoughts, and writing in general, need to be maintained in order for this to be productive in business. Along with the ability to manipulate Presence, this should be at or near the top of any IM User Bill of Rights.

I'm sure there are some who will disagree, but let those blogging pundits open up their daily blogs to such a feature and see how quick they are to change their minds. If we want that kind of interaction, simply meet face to face, or prepare a video conference. Otherwise, I suggest you ignore that new feature, forever.

Raising Smart Kids

If you're a parent of young children you'll want to read the attached article/research from Scientific American. If you're like me you've probably encountered that "I can't do it" attitude when doing homework or studying for a test. You've probably wondered how or why your child views education through this negative lens. Well, according to the research, we might have just handed them this lens and they're responding accordingly.

Next time your child says he/she is not smart, or complains about someone else in class who is smarter, try explaining how hard you had to work at getting where you are, and how other celebrated intellects in the past had to work hard to get to their levels of competence and success.

Our minds are simply like our muscles. Eliminate exercise and they shrink. When kids don't get acknowledged for the effort they exerted to accomplish a task, but are merely recognized by a single grade at the end (the result), they're discouraged to try, and the results spiral down as well. Their mind isn't expanded or exercised and the habits that come with that failure can hold back their success.

From now on I'm sticking to encouraging the effort and acknowledging the little success along the way to bigger and brighter minds. The grades will simply confirm what I already know.

Still Debating How to Use Email

Michael Sampson, who I think does a great job in his blog of keeping the industry up to date on enterprise collaboration news and trends, recently wrote a blog entitled "How often should I check email?" He writes about his recent insights that "you should check email as often as you need to get the work of your day done."

I couldn't agree more, but I know that's not how everyone does it. Michael sights examples from pundits who suggest we check email once, twice or more a day. Like what i think Michael is suggesting, I don't think there's a standard answer or approach. Email is one of many ways to keep you connected to everyone in your network. Sure there's a lot of spam, but how long does it take to hit delete?

I realize that the question quickly becomes, "if one checks email all the time and is constantly answering or deleting mail, will they ever get anything done? " Maybe that's the case for some, but I'm convinced that in order for each of us individually and organizationally to thrive, we need to respond better and faster all the time. Email, and other forms of electronic collaboration (chat, IM, video, phone, etc...) are all tools for us to accomplish our goals, not meaningless technologies that get in the way. Though, I admit, if one is not capable of moving faster, or responding in real time, the challenges pile up and then the scape goat becomes the technology and not the person, generally.

Competitive advantages are gained by your ability to plan, execute and respond. That cycle is getting faster and faster all the time, which means our responses need to be in near-real time as well. Those who can, stand a better chance at success, while those who don't...

I'd rather see folks learn to handle the real time interruptions than plan to check their electronic communications at specific intervals. We all need to learn how to quickly sort between the necessary and unnecessary, or we may become the later.