Dortch on Collaboration: The Blog!

Dynamic Case Management: Business Benefits Wrapped in Cold, Dead Fish

2011-11-08T18:04:00.000-08:00

I and others have been saying for years that if you let many if not most technically focused people open a sushi bar, the sign outside would likely say something like "cold, dead fish for sale." It's a metaphor for the unfortunate fact that technical people are often…inconsistent in their abilities to communicate the value of their knowledge and efforts to the non-technical.

In this context, I absolutely HATE the term "dynamic case management." In case you haven't yet heard said term, DCM is currently a Hot Thing among growing numbers of pundits and observers. It's supposedly the way that decision makers in marketing, customer care and related areas will develop and leverage that real-time, 360-degree view of everybody who matters to the business, or at least its revenue stream(s).

So far, OK. Now, here's where the cold, dead fish comes in.

In the first place, I am a customer, partner, prospect or competitor, and therefore the focal point of a relationship to be nurtured. NOT a "case" to be "managed." Ugh!

In the second place, there's way too much focus on the technologies that enable and support DCM, and too little on the goal itself. And that goal is not DCM, or the implementation of any specific DCM-related technologies.

The ultimate goal of DCM and related initiatives such as those focused on customer experience management (CEM) is to improve relationships with customers, partners and prospects, and the value of those relationships to the business. Specifically, this means ensuring that every interaction with your business is optimized, for those interacting with your business and for your business. (I call this online experience optimization or OEO.) It also means ensuring that the knowledge generated by those interactions can be channeled in ways that improve and refine the business processes that drive and support future such interactions. (I call this business knowledge optimization or BKO.)

These are all business goals that are human-centric and process-driven. To the extent that DCM efforts share these two characteristics, their chances for success are improved. To the extent that they do not, their likelihood of failure is increased. Whatever you want to call it, and whichever technologies you consider or deploy.

DCM is not the destination. It is an important step in the journey toward making your business more agile, more responsive, more social and more successful. DCM is also both a challenge and an opportunity for those seeking to make their companies more human-centric, process-driven. The goals, challenges and opportunities surrounding DCM require committed, focused collaboration among all key leaders and decision makers within an organization. The benefits are there to be had, if there is sufficient will and focus. And more plain-language business talk. And a lot less cold, dead fish.

Inventory Management: New Collaboration Opportunities

2011-11-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

Inventory management? What's that got to do with collaboration? A fair amount, it turns out…

What do pundits and observers like me repeat almost as often as the answer, "Well, that depends?" How about "IT and 'the business' must work together more closely!" Heard that one before?

Well, that's another type of collaboration. When it works, it drives higher levels of corporate agility and responsiveness, lead and prospect conversion, customer satisfaction, revenues and profits. When it's not? Well, you've probably seen that before…

But how to decide where to focus efforts intended to increase and improve collaboration among "the suits" and "the geeks?" I submit that a great starting point is anyplace you can identify that costs the company money, leaves money on the table or both. I further submit that one such opportunity is…inventory management.

Why? Because it's how customers perceive and determine how agile and responsive your company is. Which means everything that supports good inventory management is critical to your company. Because getting it wrong costs your company money, leaves money on the table or both.

And remember, your customers, partners, prospects, competitors and purchase influencers are all increasingly participatory inhabitants of "the mobile, social cloud." Which means that what you do well gets trumpeted widely almost immediately, as does all that you do wrong. Such as not getting what your customers want to them in a timely fashion. Inventory management again.

And let's not forget the IT connection. After all, it's your technology infrastructure that makes it possible for you to monitor social media, be more responsive and agile, and manage your critical inventories. But at many if not most businesses, 60 to 80 percent of the IT budget is being spent on just keeping what's already in place working with what's already in place. Not much room to take on new initiatives such as improving inventory management.

What to do?

Do what you need to do to get sales, marketing, operations and IT around the same table to discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by inventory management at your company. Determine how and how well inventory is being managed now, and where improvements might be found most quickly. Then, identify and road-test some premise-based, cloud-based and cloud-enabled inventory management solutions that show promise for your company.

A jump start: several worthy candidate solutions appear in an article published by Inc. in May 2011. My favorite: Fishbowl Inventory. It integrates with Intuit's QuickBooks and offers options that can take a company from better inventory management to more and better sales, fulfillment and resource planning and management, as recently covered by eWeek.

We in the punditocracy blather on incessantly about how business and IT have to get better at working together. A great way to foster such collaboration in meaningful ways is to focus on areas that avoid leaving money on the table while improving customer satisfaction, corporate perception and revenues. Improved inventory management can do all of these things.

A Special Offer: If you're interested in Fishbowl Inventory, drop a line to vip@fishbowlinventory.com. I've negotiated a relationship with the company that guarantees that every one of my readers who uses that e-mail address will get priority treatment and help getting started with their free trial of the software. And if you promise to share your feedback with me for possible inclusion in future blog posts or research (anonymously if you prefer), you'll get undying gratitude from me -- AND a five-percent discount from Fishbowl if you purchase Fishbowl Inventory! A win for everybody!

ERP: The Solution Every Business Needs But No One Wants -- Or Do They?

2011-09-29T17:22:00.000-07:00

One of the most important focus areas of business collaboration is on key business processes. Herewith, a suggestion for enabling more and better collaboration on one such process, and why enterprise resource planning (ERP) isn't more popular at more companies -- yet.

I recently had a great introductory briefing with members of the leadership team at Fishbowl, makers of Fishbowl Inventory, a very nifty inventory management solution that integrates pretty seamlessly and is pretty darned popular among users of QuickBooks.

The stimulating conversation reminded me of something Yankee Group founder Howard Anderson used to say in presentations about business technology adoption trends. To paraphrase, hundreds of thousands of drill bits are sold each year, but no one who buys one wants a drill bit. What those buyers want are holes.

No one wants ERP. Especially no one who works for a resource-constrained smaller or mid-sized business (SMB). But every smart leader and decision maker at every company shares two characteristics.

They work someplace that sells something.
That something represents an inventory that need management.

In short, where "ERP" is concerned in the real life lived by most decision makers, especially at SMBs, inventory is the primary "R" that needs "P" by the "E." Which means that inventory management is a critical, foundational element of what are, should be and will become sound ERP policies and practices.

The folks at Fishbowl understand this, and more. Which is why Fishbowl Inventory and Fishbowl Enterprise are designed in ways that make them easy to use and rapid to deliver measurable, scalable and sustainable business benefit.

It's a premise-based solution, something I don't recommend frequently. But I think this one is worth considering, especially if you're already running QuickBooks on computers that reside on your company's premises. (Fishbowl pricing starts at $4,195 and free trials are available.)

If your company makes and sells physical goods, you already know that inventory management is a drag on your colleagues and your company. Even if you don't, you have pools of assets that matter to your business, from the things you do sell to the people who sell and buy them. Each of these represents an inventory that requires management. Accurate, agile and responsive management, if you expect your company to compete effectively as more commerce moves online and under the control of buyers. So good inventory management buys your business a lot.

Take a good look at Fishbowl Inventory and Fishbowl Enterprise as potential solutions for your business. Then look at them as indicators of how your business might learn to collaborate on and love the resource management processes it needs to succeed and thrive.

Business Knowledge Optimization: The "Next Big Idea" in Collaboration

2011-09-28T16:12:00.001-07:00

What does your business know? About itself, its competitors, the forces shaping its key markets, what its customers think of it and its competitors, or how its customers make purchase decisions?

How well does your business use what it knows to improve how it does business? How prepared is your business to turn what it knows into business benefit, today and tomorrow?

Many business decision makers have no idea how to begin answering the questions above, but it's not their fault. Business knowledge – information framed in a relevant, actionable business context – is often undervalued and poorly managed, if it's managed at all. At the smartest companies, the business knows what it knows and how best to use that knowledge.

Those two things define everything significant about every modern business. So taking a holistic approach to the collection, curation and leverage of business knowledge can maximize the agility, responsiveness and competitiveness of any business. Such an approach is what I mean when I say business knowledge optimization (BKO).

Does your business need BKO? Here are some signs that it does.

Your competition is consistently "eating your lunch."
Your customers are upset, and you're not sure why, or how many are upset, or what to do about it.
Your partners are wary or confused about your road map for the future of your relationships with them.
There are no clearly defined or well-enforced policies, practices, or processes in place for collecting and leveraging knowledge consistently across the organization.
There are no clearly defined or well-enforced policies, practices, or processes in place for ensuring that business-critical knowledge is retained when those who know it leaves the business. (You might know this as "institutional memory.")

What are the key elements of BKO? They include but are not limited to the following.

Any and all collaboration and information-sharing tools your business uses today.
Any and all information repositories (such as databases) and the tools used to manage them, both premise- and cloud-based.
Any and all solutions used by your business for backup, recovery or remote storage of business-critical information.
Any and all tools and services used to capture, document or manage business processes.
Any and all information collected or provided by any and all tools that "touch" or are "touched" by any colleagues, customers, partners, prospects or others who matter to your business. (Examples include tools and services for customer care, support incident management and employee feedback collection. Additional examples include Web site analytics and social media monitoring and reporting tools, which also happen to be critical to a related big idea, online experience optimization (OEO).)

BKO also requires a level of process consistency and enforcement that is ubiquitous yet unobtrusive to succeed. This is because your business needs to capture as much information as it can about and from as many sources as it can to ensure that its knowledge is accurate, timely and actionable. At some companies this will mean revisiting almost everything about the processes that drive the business. At some companies, it will mean visiting these operational areas for the first time.

I'll have lots more to say about BKO here and elsewhere, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, you can help my research into this critical area by taking my brief BKO survey, anonymously if you prefer. You can take the survey and request summary findings at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/P6KZKSX. You can also take two equally brief surveys on OEO at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JJVTC6J and https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WFCM2KR. Thanks for your help – please tell everyone you know!

Unified Threat Management Solutions Now: Chatting with Lisa Phifer

2011-09-28T13:17:00.000-07:00

As more and more business collaboration takes place online, threats to online security become greater threats to business agility and efficiency – and continuity. Herewith, some key take-aways from an online audio discussion and chat about unified threat management or UTM devices. These are basically computer-hardware-and-software "appliances" that automatically protect business computing and networking facilities from multiple threats, such as viruses, spam and unauthorized network intrusions. Their all-in-one design makes them affordable, manageable options even for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) and small or remote facilities of larger enterprises.

This online chat featured Lisa Phifer, president of security and networking consultancy Core Competence. She has been involved in the design, implementation, and evaluation of networking, security, and management products for more than 25 years. She was formerly a member of the technical staff at Bell Communications Research and senior staff architect at Unisys. She teaches about IT and security, has written extensively for numerous publications, and is a featured speaker at leading conferences.

The event, "Choosing the Unified Threat Management Product That's Right for Your SMB," was part of the Online Audio Series at TheSecureSMB.com, which is open to everyone with complementary registration. An archive of the audio portion of chat with Lisa is available at http://tobtr.com/s/2173127. Many thanks to The Secure SMB team and all of the chat participants for their great questions, some of which generated Lisa's guidance as summarized below.

UTM, the cloud and new network client options: One chat participant asked how UTM appliances can help companies to deal with the growth of "the mobile, social cloud," remote working and "BYOC" ("Bring Your Own Computer") initiatives. Such initiatives create an even greater role for network security solutions and their management, because business can't necessarily put security measures on every authorized device, Lisa replied.

However, "[UTM appliances] that do have the ability to fit into some type of NAC [network access control] architecture can leverage endpoint health and integrity inspection [features] to protect the net from infected devices," Lisa said. Some of those UTM appliances also offer intrusion protection features that can detect and help to "quarantine" infected device activities, she added.

Business and technology decision makers should strive to ensure close integration of the management of their chosen UTM and security solutions. Those decision makers should then invoke all of the available features of those solutions that make business sense and maximize protection against infection, Lisa affirmed.

UTM appliances vs. point solutions: Another chat participant asked, "Is it better than to have multiple devices than one device? This way you can upgrade pieces as they become the slower devices on the network [and] the costs can be managed over time," especially for cash-strapped smaller businesses.

"Multiple devices add latency and points of failure. They are also costly to replace," Lisa replied. "The idea behind UTM is to give you one device to reduce latency, management complexity, and points of failure. However, you do create a potential bottleneck – one that you can manage by upgrading the UTM [appliance] or replacing it with a larger model." Another option is to use load balancing, a feature included with some UTM appliances, to divide threat management across multiple UTM solutions.

YouSendIt: Ensuring that Your Files are “Signed, Sealed, Delivered*”

2011-07-27T17:44:00.000-07:00

YouSendIt has announced release of the latest iteration of its cloud-based file-sharing service. With this new release, the YouSendIt platform becomes a far more powerful cloud-based collaboration solution for businesses large and small.

In business, everyone collaborates, whether with colleagues, customers, partners or prospects. And much of that collaboration relies upon a typically large and inconsistently managed shared store of documents. These can range from text files to full-motion, full-color high-definition videos, but they share some common characteristics.

Specifically:

They need to be kept current, up-to-date and consistent, so everyone's working with the same version of the same information.
They need to be accessible to authorized users anywhere, anytime, on any device and connection type.
They need to be tracked and secured, regardless of where they are and who's using them.
They need to be easily authorized via signature whenever necessary.

The new YouSendIt platform answers these needs admirably.

Save and sync – YouSendIt users can save and sync content in the cloud with unlimited storage.
Anytime, anywhere access – users can access files and folders in the cloud anywhere, anytime via desktop or mobile devices.
Secure sending and sharing – users can collaborate with co-workers and business partners through secure file and folder sending and sharing, while the companies that own the contents of those files and folders can securely track those contents.
Simple signing – users can review and sign business documents online, at a desk or on the go via a PC or mobile device. (The signing feature is very, very cool on a mobile device, by the way.)

There's more. Changes to files and shared folders are instantly update and synchronized across all devices, and users are notified of changes in real time. Documents and shared folders can be saved to and accessed from the YouSendIt cloud-based folder, from or to any device. YouSendIt also allows for multiple levels of sharing permissions – read and write, read only and read only without login.

You and your colleagues have to send, share, sign and synchronize documents to do business anyway. Some of you or your colleagues may be using YouSendIt already. The basic version is free, and the company claims more than 20 million registered users. (Paid single-user plans with more features and higher capacities than the free version range in price from about $10 to about $15/month. So-called "Corporate Suite" plans range from about $1,000/year for five users, or about $17/user/month, to $3,000/year for 25 users, or about $10/user/month. Greater discounts are available for larger deployments.)

Whether or not you've looked at competing solutions, this latest release of YouSendIt is clearly worth your perusal – and I'd love to know your feedback.

*With apologies to the great Stevie Wonder. :-D

Preton: Making Printing Less Expensive, More Efficient and More Green

2011-02-03T10:01:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, a long memory helps with perspective. Sometimes, it's just irritating. Sometimes, it's both.

I remember the promises of office automation in the 1970s included that of the "paperless office." Instead, adoption of information technology increased and printing needs grew prodigiously.

Today, printing and its attendant costs, especially those of ink, toner and paper, are facts of life at most companies, despite those e-mail footers that remind users to "think before they print." And policies intended to reduce those costs, such as advising users to print in draft or duplex mode, are inconsistently applied and all but unenforceable.

Even worse, many business decision makers have no real idea how much printing is costing their companies. Despite the fact that inkjet printing ink can cost $8 to $10 thousand dollars per gallon and that an average employee can print 10 to 20 thousand pages per year, according to widely published estimates. This lack of visibility into actual printing costs makes credible, quantifiable business arguments in favor of investments that reduce those costs difficult to make.

These dynamics were largely responsible to the business media attention given to reports in 2010 of a default font change at the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay. The university switched its default printing font from Arial to Century Gothic and saw printing ink requirements fall by some 30 percent, according to those reports.

However, there is no consistently effective way of enforcing such a change across most enterprises. Even the University gave users the option of reverting to the original default font, almost assuring at least some deviation from the policy.

What's needed are tools that enable and enforce printing practices that consistently reduce costs significantly and measurably. These tools must be applicable to all printers in an enterprise, and cannot interfere with or change how IT is used or managed in any way. Business decision makers also need the ability to know what printing is costing their companies, and how printing is being used, to optimize the business value of their investments in printing equipment and supplies.

Fortunately, such tools exist. Preton Ltd., founded in 2005 and headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, has been shipping such solutions for years. (Leading technology market-watchers at Gartner named Preton a "Cool Vendor" in 2006.) The company's PretonSaver family of solutions uses patent-pending "Pixel Optimizer Technology" algorithms to analyze documents and then to print them in ways that save ink or toner without visibly degrading image quality. Independent testers found that Preton solutions can cut ink/toner consumption by as much as 70 percent for text and 50 percent for graphics and images while retaining acceptable readability.

PretonSaver software, installed on individual PCs or shared servers, operates transparently, requiring no changes to installed printers, printer drivers or application software. And the PretonSaver Premium and Enterprise editions (for 25 to 500 and unlimited users, respectively) can be configured for centralized implementation, enforcement and management of policies designed to reduce costs, enable greener business operations or to meet specific business needs.

For example, duplex printing – the printing of two content pages per sheet of paper – is often difficult and daunting for users to invoke from their editing applications or their printer control panels. PretonSaver Enterprise software can be configured to implement duplex printing across all networked printers and to invoke it automatically for every print request, if desired. It also offers detailed insights into who's printing what and how much each print job and printer is costing the company.

Most recently, Preton has begun offering the PretonSaver Home edition, designed for homes and offices with up to three PCs, as a free download. The software installs easily and requires no set-up or registration. And like all editions, it allows flexible choice of savings levels and print quality, for text, photos and graphics, as well as automatic omission of images from print requests.

Today, PretonSaver software runs on Microsoft Windows XP (with Service Pack (SP) 2), Windows Vista and both 32- and 64-bit Windows 7. The company is planning support for Linux and Macintosh operating systems as well, CEO and Founder Ori Eizenberg told me.

There are other solutions that promise to reduce printing costs. Notable among these are Ecofont, ecoPrint2 and InkSaver. However, InkSaver and EcoPrint2 are only available in editions for individual/SOHO (small office/home office) use, and EcoFont only reduces ink/toner consumption for text printing, not graphics or images. Also, none of these other offerings supports as many versions of Windows or as many types of printers or content as the PretonSaver offerings. And none of these alternatives supports Preton's Pixel Optimizer algorithms, nor offers annual subscription billing options available from Preton.

Whether or not you or your company cares about being "greener," both you and your company care about saving more "green" (or whatever color the money is where you are). In that regard, you need to manage your printers and printing in ways that produce ink/toner cost savings and provide visibility into what printing costs now and why. You also need comprehensive manageability of printers and enforcement of business rules and policies across all printers and users. These features will help you to optimize printing across your entire enterprise, even if you only have one printer.

I believe the PretonSaver solutions offer these features in ways that are affordable, easy to use and easy to deploy and manage. Further, I think the free Home edition could help to create potential "ambassadors" for the corporate editions, as those home users talk up Preton among friends and colleagues.

If you've got one or more Windows PCs and one or more printer, I encourage you to download the free PretonSaver Home edition, or a free trial of the Standard or Premium edition. I further encourage you to start using it, and perhaps to compare it to one or more of the alternative offerings I've mentioned. You may become one of those ambassadors, at your own organization and beyond.

Bamboo Solutions: Taking SharePoint Beyond Collaboration in the Cloud

2011-01-20T16:18:00.000-08:00

My understanding is that Microsoft is seeking a new, improved cloud strategy. (Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer e-mailed the company, telling everyone that 23-year veteran Bob Muglia, president of the company's Server and Tools Business and gatekeeper for its evolving Azure Cloud strategy, is stepping down.) I have a modest recommendation. That strategy should focus on starting with what users are already using and build upon it, in ways that are easily accessible and affordable.

This is precisely the strategy adopted by a Microsoft Gold partner I've recently discovered and find intriguing – Bamboo Solutions. The company has built a number of offerings atop Microsoft SharePoint, a collaboration tool in use at and apparently delivering business benefits to many companies. Bamboo adds to Hosted SharePoint features for functions ranging from project and requirements management to sales and customer support.

Bamboo Cloud Applications include BambooCRM (which incorporates sales and customer support features), BambooSupport and BambooRM for requirements management. You can learn more and sign up for free trials at http://cloud.bamboosolutions.com/freecrm/. Pricing for BambooCRM starts at $29.95/user/month, billed quarterly on three-, six- or 12-month contracts.

Bamboo is delivering cloud-based collaboration tools that address specific business needs, build upon a known, proven and widely adopted platform and are available under clear, straightforward terms. They aren't going to be appropriate for every company of user, but they're worth looking at as examples of what to look for in such solutions. And they offer a glimpse at what might be possible if Microsoft were to take a similar tack with its hosted offerings – or at least to promote the ones that seem to "get" users' needs and desires with a bit more enthusiasm and clarity…

CloudPointe: Middleware that Matters to Business Users

2010-11-16T11:24:00.000-08:00

If you're going to collaborate, you will likely want to share electronic documents. And you probably already use one if not several tools for creating, editing and storing those documents. So the last thing, and I mean the VERY last thing you and your colleagues want and that your business needs is yet another application to facilitate document sharing and collaboration.

What you really want is a solution that enables these abilities in ways that are, as the most popular and valuable business IT features always become, pervasive, ubiquitous and invisible. From a more technical perspective, what you want and need looks and feels a lot like middleware -- software that users never see or touch, but that makes the tools and services they do touch work better together.

From this perspective, I believe that I have seen the future, or at least one strongly compelling future, where document-centric collaboration is concerned. I believe a harbinger of that future is CloudPointe, which has just introduced a cloud-based service that enables users of Amazon.com S3, FTP, Google Docs, Microsoft SharePoint or Secure FTP (SFTP) to share, collaborate with and store documents easily and securely.

For more details, I direct you to a recent SYS-CON article on CloudPointe by my industry colleague and fellow Focus Expert Network member Tim Negris. You can find the article at http://dortchon.it/CloudPointe, and you should read and remember it, even if you never become a CloudPointe user. Tim makes several points about what's needed for effective document sharing and collaboration -- points I've decided that I don't need to make here if you read his article, because I enthusiastically agree with all of them.

Check out Tim's article, and let him (and me!) know what you think. Ditto regarding CloudPointe. Sometimes, it's true that the future is now, and I believe now is one of those times.

Business Applications, Faster, Cheaper & Guaranteed -- EnterpriseWizard CEO Colin Earl: The Dortch on Collaboration 3-Q Interview

2010-08-24T17:34:00.000-07:00

In many companies, the most business-critical collaborations today take place via highly or totally custom-built applications. This is especially true at lager enterprises, and thanks in part to cloud computing, it's increasingly true for smaller companies as well.

Two increasingly critical challenges to effective, money-making, customer-delighting collaboration immediately leap to mind:

getting apps built, deployed and tailored as needed rapidly and cost-effectively; and
getting and keeping those those apps aligned with critical, subject-to-sudden-change key business processes.

Colin Earl is the CEO of EnterpriseWizard, makers of "adaptive business automation software" (!!) that enables businesses to build and tailor premise-based or hosted/cloud-based applications that comply with and automate business processes, with no code required. And the company offers a no-BS 100-percent money-back satisfaction guarantee. Colin is also a member of the Focus.com Expert Network, and has contributed some useful and interesting content there.

I thought Colin might have some useful thoughts on the current state and near-term future of business application-building. And I was right, as you'll read below. (I've added links to appropriate Wikipedia definitions and other resources rather than inserting a bunch of distracting explanations for some of the terms Colin uses. You're welcome.)

Q1: What is the greatest challenge facing business application builders today?
A1: Time/Cost. The business manager might say "We just need to manage XXX". He/she thinks of it in terms of a simple Web interface and expects that it should take a few days or weeks to complete.

But to meet corporate standards and government compliance, it also needs a ton of back-end and reporting functionality, such as: auditability, dashboards, automated backups, security, [support for] Web services/REST APIs, graphical charts, searching, synchronization with other systems, data integrity constraints, database connectivity [and] export/import capabilities. The list goes on and on.

By the time they have finished and debugged all this, the "little" project has taken man-years, cost a million dollars and may well be obsolete because requirements have changed.

Q2: What is the greatest challenge facing providers of tools and solutions for business application builders today?
A2: Providing a compelling value proposition. The old proposition of "Invest in months of training so that you can build applications that only the original developer can maintain" is no longer acceptable, especially when it involves some proprietary language.

With the possible exception of Microsoft, no single company can really afford to keep their proprietary technology apace with the rate of open-source development stacks. The LAMP [Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP] and open-source Java stacks are simply evolving too quickly. Compare the rate at which Android has developed, as compared to the Microsoft smart-phone OS (assuming you can still find a Microsoft-based phone).

Tools and solutions for business applications builders must therefore leverage the open-source stacks, while adding compelling value.

For example, the tool might automate provision of all the "standard" functionality such as auditability, dashboards, automated backups, etc. The developer could then focus on development of the user interface and specialized business logic, so that the whole application could be built in a matter of weeks.

Q3: What is the "next big thing" in the building of enterprise applications -- technological, cultural or other?
A3: Removing the need for hand-coding. It is not only a huge time-sink, but the source of most problems.

The Google App Inventor [for Android] is doing this in the smart-phone space and we are doing it in the enterprise application space.

Let’s examine the main reasons that CIOs are fired, as described in a 2009 CIO Strategy article:

Project never gets finished or goes too far over budget. (Removing the need for custom coding reduces the time required to develop a project by a factor of four or more.)

Major application failure. (If the tool allows the project to be developed using the functionality built into the core platform, then it will be leveraging a code set that has been tested for scalability, audited for security and proven in hundreds of enterprises worldwide.)

Non-compliance or a high-risk issue compromises the organization. (Compliance support can be automated with a tool that only shows an auditor what a defined business process is and how the system enforces it, but how the process has been followed in any particular instance. The framework can capture and collate data, such as who logged in, what IP address they came from, what records they viewed, edited, etc.)

There are further advantages [when the need for hand/custom coding is eliminated]:

User adoption is a lot easier with a system that can be rapidly adjusted based on their feedback.
If there is no custom code, there are no code-compatibility issues with upgrades.
Business managers no longer need to agree with one another on everything six months in advance. After all, the system can be changed using just a browser in a few hours. They are also no longer dependent on the “common sense” of programmers to deliver the system they need.
The system is self-documenting because everything is exposed through the admin browser.
Data integrity is automatically maintained by the system, not by custom code.
Code maintenance accounts for 80% of the cost of software projects. With no code to write, there is no code to maintain so cost, hassles and unpredictable delays are eliminated.

Dortch's Recommendations:

One of the major drivers of IT into the heart of almost every business on the planet was this intentionally vague value proposition: automate/eliminate mundane tasks and let people concentrate their skills and efforts on higher-value activities. As technologies for building, tailoring and deploying applications have evolved, "programming" such applications is increasingly becoming more mundane than unique and creative.

Of course, that means the "programming" of tools such as App Inventor for Android and EnterpriseWizard must result in tools that are powerful, yet relatively simple to use for those building and tailoring applications. Colin and his team, like the team at Google Labs building and refining App Inventor for Android, understand the criticality of combining power, flexibility and simplicity in a balance that favors, supports and empowers users.

Companies seeking to build premise-based or hosted/cloud-based applications that improve competitiveness and agility without requiring extensive programming or IT support resources should look closely at solutions such as App Inventor for Android for mobile applications and EnterpriseWizard for others. The better your business applications, and the fewer resources you have to spend on building, running and improving them, the better the collaborations your company translates into revenue and profit. You have little to risk, and much to gain, by exploring such solutions now.

Collaboration, Communication and Business Processes: Why They're Connected and How to Get Them There, in 13 Sentences!

2010-07-13T09:49:00.000-07:00

1. Every business relies on collaboration and communication to do business.

2. Almost all business collaboration and communication is supported by some form(s) of information technology (IT), whether e-mail, social media telephone or even fax.

3. To win consistently and thrive competitively, businesses need to be able to do the right things for customers, partners and prospects consistently and respond to changing requirements or conditions in a timely, agile fashion.

4. Ad hoc, inconsistent collaboration or communication practices make it unlikely to impossible for businesses to do what they need to do to win consistently or thrive competitively.

5. The key difference between collaboration and communication practices that help a business to win and those practices that don't are consistent business-driven processes implemented and enforced across all business-critical activities and actors.

6. Processes that are crafted, documented and enforced well and consistently help to ensure that all important actions contribute to satisfaction of customers, partners and prospects and business success.

7. At most businesses, critical processes are often inconsistently and poorly crafted, documented and/or enforced, when they exist, are documented or are enforced at all.

8. The businesses best able to capture, define, implement, enforce, integrate and manage critical processes are those best positioned to win and to thrive competitively.

9. A potentially powerful way to achieve these goals is to process-enable the collaboration and communication solutions upon which the business already relies and with which users are already familiar.

10. Fortunately, new IT tools are appearing that make it relatively easy for even non-technical business decision makers to capture, define, implement, enforce, integrate and manage business processes effectively and consistently, and to process-enable key collaboration and communication solutions.

11. Examples include Cordys, which offers cloud-based process and workflow management that integrates with Google's online office applications, and EnterpriseWizard, which combines cloud- or premise-based application building and process capture/creation with an unconditional money-back satisfaction guarantee.

12. Your business needs to begin by capturing, analyzing and optimizing all critical incumbent processes, evaluating and prioritizing key collaboration and communication solutions and mapping out how best to process-enable these -- preferably now if it hasn't already.

13. For more on this (and on EnterpriseWizard), read my recent Focus Brief at http://focus.com/c/B3E/; to discuss, feel free to drop me a line at mdortch@focus.com and/or at medortch@dortchonit.com.

No Flash? No Problem: Three Work-Arounds for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch Users

2010-07-08T10:27:00.001-07:00

As you may already know, I'm a big fan of almost all things Apple, especially and most recently my new iPad. As you may not know, I'm also a big fan of all the Adobe technologies with which I have experience, especially Flash. However, I am definitely NOT a big fan of how the two companies have been dealing with the lack of Flash support on Apple's iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch devices, two of which I own and use almost every day.

Partly out of frustration and largely to help other similarly frustrated users, I've collected and offer for your consideration three work-arounds -- one involving creative search engine use, one involving Web sites designed for mobile devices and users, and one involving a bit more risk. You can read about them in detail in a Brief I've just published at Focus.com under the same title as this blog post. Of course, as always, your thoughts welcome.

Unified Communications? How About UNBRIDLED Communications?

2010-07-02T16:42:00.001-07:00

In the 1970s, companies bought a bunch of computer equipment -- when what they really wanted and needed was computing.

In the 1980s and 1990s, companies bought a bunch of networking equipment -- when what they really wanted was connectivity to business-critical technology resources.

More recently, many vendors are selling, and noteworthy numbers of companies are buying, stuff that's referred to as "unified communications."

With all due respect to those worthy sellers and buyers, I'd like to submit that "unified communications" is not really what users want or need.

As I see it, the term "unified communications" is focused a bit too tightly on the underlying enabling technologies, and not tightly enough on user and business goals and needs. No more than a cursory look at how business is evolving reveals a bit of useful detail about those goals and needs.

So, what does business want and need? I'm glad I asked. Here's one answer. Business wants and needs the ability to deliver the right information to the right people at the right time in the right form, anywhere and anytime, in ways that enable and sustain high levels of user productivity, constituent care and business success.

From this perspective, businesses and their users, I believe, need "unified communications" far less than they need unbridled communications -- anytime, anywhere and secure access to accurate, consistent, timely and actionable information.

It may be a minor semantic distinction, but I mean for it to speak to a larger difference in perceptual focus. For almost the entire 30 years and change I've been in the information technology analysis business, vendors have tended to focus more on what they have to sell than on what users need to accomplish. Vendors have gotten better in recent years, to be sure, but every time a new spin on technology appears, the initial focus all too often reminds me of a popular Talking Heads lyric -- "same as it ever was."

I think that vendors would sell more solutions in less time, and that users would see meaningful, measurable ROI faster and more consistently, if each focused more on users' needs and goals. Smart resellers and integrators are making fairly nice livings by basically doing nothing but this. It's time that more of those companies and the vendor companies that supply the building blocks of those solutions followed suit. And given the business criticality of agile, secure, flexible, integrated communication and collaboration, there may be no better place to pick up the pace of the transition than the market currently -- and soon formerly, I hope -- as "unified communications."

Shameless Self-Promotion Department: One of the things I see helping to move things closer to what users need and care about is that whole "cloud computing/software-as-a-service/SaaS" thing. In fact, two of the areas in which cloud-based and SaaS business solutions are seeing their most rapid growth are in collaboration and communication. But I worry that some IT people at some businesses may be sabotaging the adoption of such solutions, intentionally and/or otherwise.

I've posted a blog entry that goes into a bit more detail about my concerns, which you can read here. I'd like it very much if you'd offer your opinions about this in a discussion going on now at Focus.com. Or you can feel free to write to me directly at medortch@dortchonit.com with opinions on anything about which you care enough to write. Thanks in advance!

Salesforce.com's Chatter: Better Business Collaboration and Customer Care in 2010?

2009-11-18T12:02:00.000-08:00

Why is it easier to follow friends or strangers on Twitter or Facebook than it is to keep track of what your colleagues at work do and with whom they communicate?

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff has been asking himself such questions, and he and the team at his company have come up with a pretty interesting answer – what he calls “our biggest breakthrough ever.” The call it “Salesforce Chatter.”

It’s designed to bring “the magic of Facebook and Twitter” to the enterprise – real-time links among content, applications and people. It’s basically a collaboration cloud – a private social network for businesses, and a platform that can enable any application built and run upon it. This means that business collaborators can communicate, collaborate and keep track of one another more easily and consistently. It also means that custom applications can gain and use social networking features, including real-time feed updates, user profiles and all kinds of interaction.

This is new and different. It’s basically a social cloud, analogous to the Sales Cloud and Service Cloud solutions Salesforce.com has introduced previously. It’s got a lot of the dynamic, interactive flow and feel of many of the demos I’ve seen of Google Wave, but it’s focused on business functions. Oh, and it enables applications and content (such as PowerPoint presentations) to “talk” to people as easily as people talk to each other. So things that happen across the enterprise can appear as events in your organization’s Chatter-empowered social cloud.

Salesforce.com’s Chatter could turn out to be the foundation for bunches of different types of business collaborations and communications. (It’s already at the heart of the most recent versions of Salesforce.com’s Sales Cloud and Service Cloud offerings.) If you’re interested in such things, whether you’re a Salesforce.com customer or not, you really ought to dig into Chatter, starting at http://www.salesforce.com/chatter/. Then, let me know what you think, preferably by joining the conversation about Chatter at Focus, which you can find at http://bit.ly/ChatterAtFocus.

Microsoft Office Web Applications Arrive: Is It Finally Time for Your “Office in the Cloud(s)?”

2009-10-28T14:46:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has begun rolling out something many of us in the punditocracy have long viewed as inevitable but unlikely – Web-based, so-called “lightweight” versions of its flagship Office programs. The debut is so far limited to a subset of the Office suite, and to invitees only, but the implications for collaboration – and for the venerable, nearly ubiquitous Microsoft Office itself – are already significant.

Microsoft is in fact focusing largely on support for collaboration with its Office Web Applications. They’re accessible via Internet Explorer, Firefox or Apple’s Safari Web browser (but not Google’s Chrome, at least so far), and the Web-based version of Excel already supports multi-authoring, or simultaneous editing of the same workbook by multiple collaborators. Users can’t yet create Word documents, but should soon be able to create and collaborate on all types of Office documents.

Microsoft plans to make Office Web Applications available in three different modes. Subscribers to its Windows Live service will have no-cost access. Users of Microsoft Online Services will be able to purchase subscriptions. And companies licensing Microsoft Office 10 will also be able to license and provide access to Office Web Applications.

I expect these Microsoft offerings to be very popular, especially at companies seeking to reduce or halt the growth of their licensing and support contract costs for Microsoft Office. Many such companies have deployed or begun exploring other online alternatives from Adobe, Google, Zoho and elsewhere. However, these all offer mixed bags of interoperability and compatibility with native Office applications and file formats. So an online suite from Microsoft should eventually offer an alternative that does not suffer from such limitations. But those other online office/productivity suite providers aren’t going to stand still either.

Microsoft’s official entry into the online collaboration suite market will definitely make the market more interesting. Whether it will benefit Microsoft as much as or more than its cloud-based competitors remains to be seen. But where users are concerned, more online collaboration choice is definitely better, especially if it comes with more seamless interoperability with all of those Microsoft Office files most of us rely upon every day to do business.

If you want to know more, check out these two Focus Research Briefs – “The Productivity Suites War” (at http://www.focus.com/briefs/information-technology/web-based-productivity-suites-war/) and “10 Signs that it May be Time to Consider a Web-based Productivity Suite” (at http://www.focus.com/briefs/information-technology/10-signs-it-may-be-time-consider-web-based-business-software/). And if you have opinions on where online collaboration and productivity suites are headed, please share them at http://www.focus.com/groups/information-technology/topics/view/officeproductivity-applications-desktop-cloud/.

Google Wave: The Future of Collaboration, Unified Communications and Business Intelligence

2009-06-02T15:34:00.000-07:00

Note: I originally posted this at ebizQ, but wanted to make sure everyone saw it here, too. If you've already read it, my apologies -- feel free to share with someone who hasn't!

Lars and Jens Rasmussen of Australia, the creators of Google Maps, have done it again.

Google Wave is an open platform and open set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that integrates multiple collaboration techniques into logical, flexible and powerful virtual shared conversations, or "waves." You can "jump in" at any point in a wave's existence, play back parts you missed, and determine whether everyone or only certain people receive whatever you decide to share. Waves can feed blogs with minimal coding. Web sites can be wave-enabled with relative ease. You can access and participate in waves from mobile devices. Waves enable consolidated content collaboration and discussion - no need to choose between, for example, an e-mail thread and a wiki.

There's a whole bunch of other cool stuff in Google Wave, but there's no way I could do it justice here - at least not until I download and become conversant with the APIs and relevant other tools. Which isn't happening - not this week, anyway. You should go to http://wave.google.com and check out the hour-plus presentation and demo, take a shorter "sneak peek" or learn more about the Wave.

And you should expect to be as surrounded by waves as Australia, Tasmania, or your ocean-based land mass. The growth of public, private and hybrid computing clouds is very likely to be mirrored by the growth of public, private and hybrid waves supporting every type of business communication, collaboration or relationship. Which means waves will quickly become essential tools in the service of those pursuing more and better business intelligence (BI).

Why am I so confident? Partly because of what's happened to and with Google Maps - zero to near-ubiquity as the enabler of geographic content and features in Web-based applications in almost no time. Partly because of what's happened and is happening to and with Google Docs & Apps. But mostly because of all of the above, plus it's Google. And because I can't imagine any type of size of business that can't improve communication, collaboration and/or outreach to clients, prospects and partners with the current and likely forthcoming features of Google Wave.

The open APIs and protocols, along with Google Wave's native HTML 5.0 foundations, mean that integration with other online and traditional applications is coming sooner rather than later. And I'm sure that tools for analysis of feature and content access and use patterns are also coming soon. Heck, someone's probably working on direct integration with at least one open source BI tool even as I write this, let alone by the time you read it.

Frankly, I'm hoping to encourage development of more features and integrations among all interested in Google Wave. I am fervently convinced that the delivery of customizable and flexible consolidations of content creation, collaboration and sharing can lead almost directly to greater BI - and more intelligent businesses. And Google has demonstrated its ability to develop and deliver powerful, flexible and open enabling technologies. So I, for one, expect a tsunami of support for Google Wave, and for must of that support to result in new and useful options for those seeking powerful and flexible BI solutions.

Imitation Being the Sincerest Form of Flattery...

2009-06-02T15:23:00.000-07:00

...I am borrowing an idea from my former Aberdeen Group colleague and the coolest enterprise mobility analyst I know, Philippe Winthrop, an analyst at Strategy Analytics and the guy behind the most excellent blog "Enterprise Mobility Matters." In his recent posting, "Fireside Chats on Enterprise Mobility," he describes a nifty interviewing methodology he's introduced at his blog.

Quite simply, I'm borrowing -- NOT stealing -- and adapting it for those of you interested in IT-enabled collaboration. (At MIT, where I went to school, they said MIT students never lie, cheat or steal -- they elaborate, collaborate and borrow.)

I'm starting to e-mail questions to some of the people I believe to be the leading lights in the industry, and will share my questions, their answers, and my reactions to them with you here. So stay tuned, and send suggestions for interview subjects and questions you'd like to see them answer. Meanwhile, thank Philippe for me, should you see him or visit his blog, which I strongly urge you to do!

Cemaphore: New Cloud-Based Options for Growing, Protecting, and Reducing the Costs of Microsoft Exchange Deployments

2009-05-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

Cemaphore is a company that appears to have cracked the code for painless synchronization of multiple editions of Microsoft Exchange with Google's Gmail and Google Apps. This is important because that means Cemaphore's technologies can be used to provide seamless, reliable back-up of business-critical Exchange deployments, whether premises-based or hosted. It also means users seeking to reduce e-mail licensing costs can use hosted Exchange and/or Gmail as alternatives and/or adjuncts to Exchange Server, while providing a seamless experience to all using or managing e-mail at an enterprise.

This week, Cemaphore announced a new combination of Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite offerings with Cemaphore's MailShadow OnLine e-mail migration and synchronization solution. Editions include Microsoft Exchange Online Deskless Worker (Outlook Web Access Light plus a 500-megabyte mailbox) combined with MailShadow OnLine for $7 per user per month, and Exchange Online (Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 plus a 5-gigabyte mailbox) combined with MailShadow OnLine for $13.24 per user per month through June 30, 2009. Other plans also available, Cemaphore said.

Business technology decision-makers have frequently faced frustrating and unsatisfying choices when trying to choose among Exchange Server, some hosted Exchange alternative, and cloud-based e-mail and collaboration solutions other than Exchange. Cemaphore gives those decision-makers and the users they support greater flexibility to mix and match multiple alternatives, without imposing undue inconsistencies upon collaboration users or managers. Anyone pursuing or considering new or expanded Microsoft Exchange deployments should look closely at Cemaphore's offerings, for opportunities to improve reliability and availability of collaboration tools while lowering deployment and management costs and complexities. And once you have looked at Cemaphore and its solutions, do please let me know what you think.

MobileTribe: One Way “Unified Communications” Becomes “Unbridled Collaboration?”

2009-03-25T14:29:00.000-07:00

So. This whole “social media” thing. Hmm.

I mean, I get it on a personal, visceral level. But for business, only a little so far. Not so much. I keep waiting for things to move forward a bit further.

I think as good a map as any is the blog post “10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2009,” by Ravit Lichtenberg, founder and chief strategist of Ustrategy.com, “a boutique consultancy focusing on helping startups succeed,” according to the founder herself. I'm particularly focused on the following ways cited by Ms. Lichtenberg (although I agree with all 10 of them and urge you to read them all):

2. Creating Meaning and Value;
3. Enabling Convergence;
5. Creating Relevant Social Networks;
6. Innovating in the Advertising Space;
7. Helping People Organize Their "Old" Social Media Ecosystem; and
10. Making Money.

I believe that those companies and services that focus on the above imperatives will not only help me to understand more completely what all the fuss is about, but will actually make money and deliver value. And I believe there are candidates already among us.

One matched pair of such candidates is the combination of iSkoot and INQ, featured in a clear and well-written article by Marguerite Reardon of CNET News on Mar. 11, 2009, the two companies are working together to enable inexpensive mobile telephones to access Web-based social media and collaboration features akin to those supported by more expensive “smart phones” and monthly data plans. iSkoot will supply software development tools and support to incumbent telephone-makers, while INQ focuses on delivering new, low-cost phones incorporating the iSkoot features, according to the article. Since iSkoot pioneered bringing the low-cost Internet-based Skype telephone service to mobile phones, I'm at least guardedly optimistic here.

Another worthy candidate, and my personal favorite to date, is MobileTribe. The company just announced version 2.0 of its software, which now supports access to Facebook, Google, MySpace, Orkut, Plaxo, and Yahoo! collaboration and social media features via a single application. And since MobileTribe can re-format (or “transcode”) streaming content on the fly, users can share pictures and videos from, for example, YouTube or MySpace through that same application. There is even integration with the JaJah Web-based telephony service, for inexpensive voice communications with your consolidated friends. (I've played with the MobileTribe 2.0 software, and the user interface is pretty nifty – it's easy to switch from one service to another, and to select among address books, blogs, e-mail, friends, pictures, and videos.)

MobileTribe currently supports BlackBerry devices and a growing range of smart phones. Also, I'm told that support for more business-oriented social networks such as LinkedIn are coming. I'm thinking that a “business class” version of the software focused on consolidating business users' access to FaceBook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, other so-called “professional networks” and perhaps internal corporate networking and collaboration features has got to be in the offing as well.

MobileTribe may represent the most advanced current vision of how that long-desired Holy Grail, “unified communications,” actually works and makes money in real life. As new advertising and other revenue-generating models join the party, users should increasingly gain new abilities to decide with whom, how, and when to communicate and collaborate, from wherever they are, using the devices most convenient for them at the time. This is the kind of unified communications that can enable the broadest possible range of ad hoc, yet well-managed collaboration choices, for the broadest range of users, business and otherwise.

Might even make me get this whole social networking thing...and finally break down and get one o'them smart phones...

RealGov.com: Government Accessibility, Responsiveness, and Transparency, By the People, For the People!

2009-03-11T09:38:00.001-07:00

I've embarked on yet another little project I feel is a great emerging example of how modern technologies can enable new and better collaborations -- such as those between government and the governed. The relevant news release appears below. Please visit RealGov.com and participate!

Edison Innovations Launches RealGov.com, a Web-Based Platform for Creating Better Government

Public “Wiki” Designed to Enable New Government Accessibility, Responsiveness, and Transparency Seeks Content, Ideas, and Funds

KENWOOD, Calif., March 2009 – Edison Innovations, a company focused on delivery of “innovation as a service,” announced today an open testing and collaborative development initiative for its RealGov.com project. RealGov.com, an evolving online resource designed to help build new, citizen-controlled bridges and communications channels linking government with the governed, in any locality and nation-wide.

RealGov.com is a public “wiki” for which any interested citizen can contribute, edit, or comment upon content. RealGov.com is much like Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia, and is based on the same supporting technologies and principles. Citizens, employees of government agencies, politicians, and others interested in increased government accessibility, responsiveness, and transparency are invited to visit the RealGov.com Web site (at http://www.realgov.com), and to contribute to its features, development, and support.

“Wikipedia has evolved from a Web-enabled experiment and curiosity to perhaps the preeminent collaborative information source in the world,” said Michael Dortch, RealGov.com's chief evangelist and 30-year information technology (IT) industry veteran. “Similarly, modern 'social media' tools are evolving into essential enablers of communication and collaboration. RealGov.com will leverage these technologies and trends, to provide new connections between and among those in government and those they govern.

“Our situation as a species, as a nation, and as distinct communities has changed and requires new models for the relationship between our civil servants and the civic body,” said Cliff Figallo, an Edison Innovations and RealGov.com advisor and a founder and coordinator of SociALCHEMY, an expert network focused on transforming how groups think and the media they use to do so. “Governments and the citizens that elect them must be more communicative and coordinated about who takes responsibility for what actions, because there will be more to do than either can do alone. RealGov.com is not an adversarial play – it's a collaborative play.”

“With RealGov.com, we can bring the wisdom, experience, and creativity of millions to bear on solving the problems President Obama is so clearly bringing to the forefront of our collective consciousness,” said Larry MacDonald, founder of Edison Innovations. “These resources have always been there, but almost never well utilized. The ability to collect and focus them is America’s secret weapon, and one with global reach. Just as America played a major part in ending World War II, it will do the same with this economic war, thanks to RealGov.com, a strong example of the types of needs-driven, opportunity-rich projects Edison Innovations pursues.”

RealGov.com is open now to any and all interested contributors of content, funds, or ideas. Functionality will be expanded during the next few months, as user input is received and integrated. For more information about RealGov.com, contact Michael Dortch at mdortch@realgov.com or at (US) +415/310-6480.

About Edison Innovations, Inc.

Edison Innovations is a company that combines unique intellectual property, real-world experience, modern technologies, and the intuition of crowds to provide smart solutions to address significant market needs. The company provides “innovation as a service” via outsourced research and development (R&D) services, focused on identifying and selecting high-potential market needs and pains, then developing and bringing to market solutions to those pains. Founder and CEO Larry MacDonald, founder/CEO, brings strategic direction, innovation and vision to the company, based on 40 years of experience across multiple industries and services. Larry hosted the world’s first online entrepreneur’s conference for ten years. More information is available at http://www.edisoninnovations.com, or through lmacdonald@edisoninnovations.com, or at (US) +707/833-2280.

Twitter: Next Stop, Some "Tweet" Revenues?

2009-02-15T11:58:00.000-08:00

Sitting on a $50-million cash reserve, how should Twitter generate revenues? Targeted ads like Google? Job ads like LinkedIn? Enterprise editions with private labeling, enhanced security, performance guarantees and service level agreement (SLA) support, and fee-based support? I'm just free-styling here, but they've got to do something, so what should it be? E-mail me at medortch@dortchonit.com, tweet me publicly or @dortchonit, and/or leave a comment here, and let's see if we're as clever as Twitter management or Twitter's investors.