This year's Lotusphere was a tremendous show. After some serious stumbling over strategy in previous shows, Lotus Software has spoken with a reasonably familiar and distinct voice. This is no mean feat given the big fish that swallowed it. (Famous joke from a previous rumor that IBM would buy Apple: Q: "What do you get when you cross IBM with Apple Computer?" A: "IBM!") The reports from the show are pretty positive and talk about the participants being "Awash with products" and about IBM girding for the collaboration battle with Microsoft
Talking of battles in a field where the goal is collaboration does seem a bit silly. What I tended to see was a sea change in strategy. In the past, there seemed to be a preoccupation with managing the product mix, deciding which products to promote, which products to prepare for sunsetting. The trouble with that strategy is that the old products are often incredibly attractive and vital. The change seems to be that as long as a product in the lineup has a loyal and profitable following, it will probably have a place. The marketing people always find ways to spar with Microsoft, but the refreshing news is that the teams that maintain and improve the flagship products are very much in place and doing great work. In some cases such as Quickplace, with a core team of four, it is stunning to see how much work is being done. Closer to the CICS farm, I met with one of the leaders of the IBM research team about the ongoing ideas of activity-based computing. This term generally applies to computing needs for people with similar activities or to the analysis of patterns within activities. I hope that in the upcoming contract with IBM, there will be a possiblity to focus on this theme. It can lead to adapting collaborative tools to a particular group of people. More recently, research teams at Berkeley have used it to dig into a set of devious patterns in the business world.
From Marc Smith of Microsoft
A quick blog entry to capture information about a rare talk about social software. I have rarely seen a "scholarly treatment" at this level on the subject. In a podcast available through IT Conversations that is a recording from the Oreilly Emerging Technology Conference Marc Smith of Microsoft makes a rare, thoughtful talk about on-line community. His analysis is not always perfectly clear, but there is enough description to get an idea of some of the things he is doing to help visualize on-line communities. Probably for a full version, you shoud read his book. In his talk he provides pointers to sociologists that he feels have articulated the rules of on-line communities:From John Clippinger
John Clippinger has been working in very much the same space. He is currently working as the senior fellow for the Social Physics project. One thing he has in common with Smith is that his focus is on real world affects of electronically linked groups and patterns of information sharing. His talk on IT Conversations is a bit of a random walk around the coexistance of control and independance. He derives the principle that trust in electronic spaces is a highly distributed and transparent discipline.From Ze Frank
While you are browing around IT Conversations, make sure to listen to the Ze Frank talk on airline travel and intelligent design.