Category: Weblogs

Announcing, announcing, announcing

How big is that cake

Microsoft’s press team have had a busy couple of days.

The first two announcements that caught my eye were virtualisation announcements:

The softricity one is old news, coming as it does on the same day as the XenSource one though it shows a definite shift in the market. While many people are focusing on virtualisation at the server as a way of reducing server footprint and cost, many people are missing the ability of virtualisation to all IT organisation to loosen control without loosing control. This loosening effect will be especially true for the softricity technologies.

Then there were a couple of hosting announcements:

From the first one:

Intergenia, a leading Web hosting company based in Germany, has deployed a wide array of Microsoft hosting solutions to deliver applications and services to its broad customer base. With more than 2.2 million active sites hosted and more than 20,000 dedicated servers in data centers in and the U.S., the company has recently been declared the second-largest Web hosting provider in the world by the British market research firm Netcraft Ltd. More than 95 percent of Intergenia’s active sites are hosted on the Microsoft Solution for Windows-based Hosting 3.5. In 2005 Intergenia was one of the first German hosting providers to launch Hosted Exchange and has since deployed the solution to a growing number of customers.

“We are seeing a significant upswing in the software-as-a-service market in Germany, and Microsoft solutions for Windows-based Hosting and Hosted Messaging and Collaboration are helping us to capitalize on this opportunity,” said Thomas Strohe, founder, Intergenia AG. “Our customers expect a high level of security and service availability, and because of the ease of deployment and the tools and management capabilities in Microsoft’s solutions, we are able to provide both. As companies become more familiar with the software-as-a-service model, we expect to see demand grow even stronger for more sophisticated services and applications.”

I never really saw hosting and SaaS as the same thing, or perhaps I’m wrong and hosting is a form of SaaS. Michael Platt’s been trying to get his head around the different definitions too. Scoble wrote a number of times about how Microsoft should purchase Web 2.0 companies, perhaps they have a more subtle plan which we are seeing working itself out – perhaps the plan is not to own the applications, but to own the delivery of the applications.

Another interesting announcement was the purchase of wininternals. A very interesting move, particularly the thought of Microsoft trying to integrate another set of talented individuals.

Tags: , , , Softricity

One of my Flickr Pictures Passed 1000 views (with style)

GrafitiOne of my flickr pictures has passed 1000 views (1128 to be precise for the moment). I noticed that it was popular near the end of last week and then it only had 990 (ish) view. That’s right, nearly 150 view since over the weekend.

This is a complete mystery to me. I have absolutely no idea why this picture get so many views. It’s not a bad picture, but it isn’t that interesting either. There are lots of pictures which I personally prefer.

Ever since I took it, it has gained lots of views. It’s sister picture has nearly 1000 (901 actually). In Flickr pictures tend to get noticed because they are members of all sorts of groups, but that’s not true for this picture either, it’s not been posted into any groups. GrafitiIt’s not like it has any comments associated with it either. There’s only one comment and that’s mine, asking if anyone knows why it’s popular .

The most popular Jimmy and Grandad picture has only gained 172 views by comparison .

I suppose it could be related to the blog that it’s posted on. I’d like to think that this was the reason and that lots of people where reading this particular post because I regard it as one of my best. I have done some tests, and I don’t think that these remote loads actually count, the statistics on the blog don’t add credence to this thesis either .

Boggle? Sounds fitting for such a mystery .

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It's about creating links

Grandad, Dad, Mum and Jimmy

That Coyote bloke got me thinking again this morning:

“you need time to see the links between items or areas of knowledge. The brain finds it hard to hang on to disconnected pieces of information. Unlike a computer disc, it doesn’t cope well with large amounts of more or less random data. What it does best is to see connections, linking information together and remembering the patterns, not single pieces of data. Remembering a principle and applying it is far easier to do that recalling some individual “rule” or procedure for handling a situation. Do we see those links instantly? Usually not. It takes time to register them fully and understand them well enough to recall them whenever we want.”

So why do so many of our enterprise information systems do such a poor job of reflecting the links that we have built in our minds between things, and do an even worse job of allowing us to see the links that other individuals have created.

Let’s look at a few example. In the file system I can group a load of files into a folder so that they are all together, but this doesn’t reflect the links that exist between the document. I regularly open a number of files to find the information that I am looking for. I know it’s in one of them because that’s why they are there but there really isn’t any visible linkage. Someone else looking at the set of documents would need to read them all to get a handle on the information contained within.

Document management systems are rarely any better they allow the person who has posted the document to give it a set of key words and to build the taxonomy. Anything information that follows on from this document isn’t reflected and the likely value of each document that has been tagged with a certain keyword isn’t shown either.

Take documents as an entity, particularly technical documents. They are usually a huge blob of data with thousands of internal logical links. The data in this section relates to the data in that section, but we rarely do anything to flag those links. As the links aren’t explicitly shown we need to take in a huge amount of data before we can understand where the links are. It’s rarely possible to structure a technical document in a way that actually makes these links obvious. Lots of people have started making documents out of PowerPoint presentations, it’s something I encouraged initially but now I’m not so sure. The problem with a document is the huge blob problem, the nice thing about a PowerPoint structure is that each page makes a point or a small number of points in this way the huge blob is broken down into a set of smaller blobs. These ‘presentations’ are never going to be presented, they are meant to be read as a set of small chunks which allow people to form their own links.

Blogs are slightly better, assuming people follow the etiquette. Part of the etiquette of blogs is that you do someone the courtesy of referencing their ideas, and rightly so. Because blogs are normally a smaller chunk of data and the links are built in it’s possible to work backward down a subject. Services like track-back and technorati also allow you to follow the links forward.

Tagging services like del.icio.us provide a new way of reflecting the links. They allow items to be tagged by the person consuming the document. Rather than the person who created the item defining the value, the person consuming it does. This capability has taken on the rather ungainly term of folksonomy.

The ability to move beyond taxonomy into folksonomy is rarely available inside an organisation though. Some organisations are getting there – IBM, HP (PDF) (Thanks for the info Stu).

What makes someone tag inside an organisation and how many people does it take. I’m not yet clear about all of the factors that make someone tag, but I can speak from my del.icio.us experience. There are a few reasons why I tag. The main one is a really simple one, I want my voice to be heard. I have valid opinions (or so I think) and I want them to be heard. I’m sure that if I was able to tag within my organisation I would feel exactly the same. Another really important reason is that I tag for my own benefit. As the Coyote says, it take time to register the links in our brains, being able to register the links somewhere helps me to find them in the future. Registering a link also helps me to remember them, I regularly write things down so I don’t forget them, I rarely use the written record because the act of writing it down has implanted the information in my brain, tagging has a similar effect.

We have a long way to go with exposing links, and the value to us humans is in the links rather than in the actual data. The current technologies will take a while to become mainstream in most enterprises, and even longer for the process and social changes to become common practice. There is, however, a new generation who will expect these services to be available and business constrain them at their peril.

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changethis.com

Jimmy goes paddling

I’ve always been a bit of a fan of public debate. In the England we have Speakers Corner in Hyde Park where debate is encouraged. Other countries have similar things.

Today I cam across www.changethis.com where people propose a new manifesto, people vote on their proposal. If there is enough interest they get to write their manifesto. The thing about a manifesto, though, is that this is no short sound-bite about an idea. If you write a manifesto you have to think it through and provide your reasoning.

This is a great idea.

So much of our media is taken up with completely misleading sound-bites based on prejudice and assumption. We need to have these prejudices and assumptions challenged if we are going to change, and they aren’t challenged in 5 seconds on the news. It requires some effort on our behalf, but it has got to be worth it in the long-run.

Smashy and Nicey Search Goodness

I can fly

I’ve noticed an increase in the number of hits on this site over the last few days. So I did a little investigation into where they were coming from.

It appears that I am now above Wikipedia on Yahoo UK for searches on Smashie and Nicey. I’m #7 with Wikipedia #8. All this from one post?

Google has it a little more accurate with me at #9 and Wikipedia at #4.

Are there really that many people still searching the Internet for Smashie and Nicey?

The things is – now I’ve commented on it, I’m bound to just get higher.

Apparently happenings is also a good match for ladies seeking house husbands #7 .

We still have a long way to go with making search relevant .

(Jimmy and Grandad went on a bit of an adventure last night – see flickr to find out more)

DEL.ICIO.US Links

Stone Leaf

The consensus on the del.icio.us links seems to be that they were noise, so I’ve turned them off. Stuart W’s comments weren’t the only ones, even though his are the only ones on this blog.

 

If you are interested you could always subscribe direct.

Stuart W: Links are too much noise

My friend Stuart thinks that the link posts are too much noise – anyone else? It was an experiment to see how usable they were, I’m quite willing to turn them off.

User Experience Thinking: Sametime 7.5: Multi-way chat enhancement

InsideLotus highlights one of those features that will be in Sametime 7.5 that we all have wanted for some time.

“Allow new chat invitees to see history when they enter the chat” – brilliant .

I have been involved in hundred of ad-hoc meetings that have added someone into the chat part way through. Every time this happens the meeting has to slow down while we get the new attendee up to speed. Now the new attendee can get up to speed quickly and completely.

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Smashie and Nicey Return to Blogs

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts recently. I’m really starting to appreciate this way of consuming information.

One thing has struck me though – Smashie and Nicey never went away, they just moved over to podcasts .

(Wikipedia on Smashie and Nicey)

Ed Brill: Noise-to-Signal Ratio

Lilacland: Grandad tries to do something with jimmy's hair

I wouldn’t normally focus in on a single blog, especially when I’m being critical, but this time I feel different. I have for some time been frustrated with writings of Ed Brill. It’s taken me a little while to work out why though and then it occurred to me – it was down to the noise-to-signal ratio.

For those of you who don’t know Ed Brill is Business Unit Executive, Worldwide Lotus Messaging Sales, IBM Software Group. What I am writing is not meant to be criticisms of Ed as a person, but in his ability to meet the requirements that I personally have. His job title gives me an expectation that he is going to be talking about how great the IBM Lotus software is, my frustration comes out of my perception of his ability to meet those expectations. I doubt very much whether they are the expectations of most people who read his blog and I am sure it is wholly unfair for me to pick on his blog in particular, but it’s the one that has frustrated me the most.

I’m looking for a signal from IBM that tells me about all of the really great stuff they are doing with collaboration technology. Ed’s blog goes some way to fulfilling this requirement, his job title certainly gives me that expectation.

As with any blog though (mine especially) there is some noise. The noise can just be stuff that I’m not interested in; this is only low volume noise. The noise may be stuff that I definitely don’t want to hear because it is completely unhelpful to me in my situation; this is high volume noise.

If the noise volume is high, the signal volume needs to be even higher so that the signal can be heard above the noise.

So I decided to put it to the test and analysed the last 20 posts on Ed’s site and marked them from +5 to -5. +5 being a great signal, -5 being complete noise. Remember -5 cancels out +5, that’s how noise-to-signal works. Everything about Ed’s family and things like that I scored as 0, they aren’t really noise.

Across 20 posts I go to a signal score of just 7 out of a possible 100. Not a very good signal.

One post in particular I scored as 0. All of the good signal at the beginning of the post was blown away by the high level noise at the end. This one really epitomises the problem for me. I want to hear about the great IBM road-map and that’s what I want to be left with, I want to hear how IBM have sorted out the confusion they caused last year and are steaming ahead. I do not want to be left with the noise about the Microsoft road-map which anyone in the industry knows about – but it doesn’t stop them being perceived as taking market share.

There are two ways of resolving the noise-to-signal issue. One is to increase the volume of the signal, the other is to reduce the volume of the noise. Please Ed can I have a bit more signal and a bit less noise.

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Del.icio.us Links in the blog

Lilacland: Grandad tries to dance with the one of the locals but she is a bit stiff

I few (not many) people have asked me about the things that I read and how I keep up to date. I have from time to time tried to be diligent in tagging things in a way that was accessible to people – in my case using del.icio.us.

This has been of limited success, which is why I would get bored and stop doing it.

Anyway, I’m trying a new tactic, I’m going to get del.icio.us to post into my blog every night and then it’s a reminder that I have (or haven’t updated) with some stuff I’ve been reading. If you think that this is just annoying then please let me know.

Communicating: What Should You Expect

Adventures in Teenbed-Ageroom: Turn it down someone, please!!!

Creating Passionate Users has an interesting article today on the success of communication techniques.

When trying to communicate to a crowd it looks like the best you can get is about 30%, and that’s if you put something in their hands and communicate via written or video media.

This rings true with my own experience. I have been involved in a number of large projects that have implemented some new technology something (email, desktop, etc.). In each case the implementation has gone slower then the project managers expected and in every case the project managers have complained that the end user has not done what they were asked to do.

If a project requires the end user to do something – the best you should expect is that 30% of them will do it. If you start with that number you will build a project that will at least be realistic about the effort that is going to need to be expended overcoming this limitation. If you expect that only 30% will do what you want them to do then you will realise how important it is to have a project that requires the end user to do nothing whatsoever; any dependency on the end user will just slow you down.