Web-Tones

Darkside of SaaS?

As we move more and more of our computing to the cloud one thing will become painfully obvious. It is not the service provider with the coolest interface or lowest cost that will win. It is the provider that can deliver 24/7 world class support. Many Web 2.0 providers do not yet understand that consumers are starting to run their businesses on these platforms. Scalability, availability and reliability are not just nice words but everything when your living depends on your online presence.

One of the most annoying things is the inability to talk to a human being when things go seriously wrong through no fault of your own. Here is a dirty little secret about SaaS: a major screw up on the provider's part can bring your online world tumbling down in a NY second. Try to find a number that you can call and ask a question like WTF just happened? Nope, can't do it. Just have to submit a ticket to the cloud and hope that someone responds in time to save that major deal you are working on.

Well maybe if you upgrade your support subscription you get a phone number to call. Nope, what you get is someone who will look at the ticket faster, but that does not mean that resources have been allocated. In other words, your entire online business could be in someone else's hands; talk about a risky proposition. Think that it won't happen to you? Think again. Does this mean that I have soured on my view that SaaS is the future. Not entirely. But you can be damn sure that I am going to better understand my support options and take my business where I am satisfied that top quality IT production support is available.

I want to collaborate with organizations that understand what a "production" website means. It means that I lose money when it is down. Which means that their quality assurance better be top notch and when the inevitable screw up happens that they respond like there hair is on fire. We are not there yet folks and it would not surprise me if some big name providers don't fall off the cliff.

Tim Berners-Lee reads Web-tones?

Link: BBC NEWS | Technology | Web in infancy, says Berners-Lee. Well not really, but he does agree with me that it is still early in web years. Even though what we have seen so far is amazing, even despite the fact that geeks are disposed to hyperbole, we have not seen the best of the web yet. Why? One of the reasons is that improved broadband speeds will once again redefine what is possible. Innovation rides on top of infrastructure and currently the infrastructure does not support all (or even most) of the things that we would like to do.

I predict that we are at an inflection point once again. The slow economy will not disrupt it as it did post dot.com bubble. There is now widespread consensus that the Internet represents the future in industry after industry. This round of innovation is also likely also to come from unexpected places. It will be driven as much by the creative use of existing technology as it is by the creation of more/better technology. That is the real inflection point. We are quickly moving away from  Internet domination by techno geeks to domination by the masses. As Clay Shirky says here comes everybody.

Long arm of the law?

Link: Malware gets a EULA - Boing Boing. Here even the bad guys are trying to control downstream uses of their stuff. Of course, for obvious reasons, illegal activity will not be protected under any doctrine where the subject matter itself is illegal, however it is somewhat amusing that such an attempt is made. Of course, these guys have other ways to attempt to enforce the agreement and one that should not be discounted willy nilly by prospective users--especially if they are who they say they are.

Just another indicator that when it comes to the Internet, it is the wild, wild west all over again. Except the borders have expanded and the wildness appears to be coming from all directions. Wonder if they had any legal help in preparing the EULA?

Brave New Internet(s)

Morgan Stanley’s March Internet Trends Report: Social Applications Dominating: It looks like social networking is certainly not a "fad" if these numbers are reliable. One extremely  interesting data point is the non-US growth that is occurring. It remains to be seen, outside of the "big boys," how many online entrepreneurs can tap into the growth that is occurring elsewhere. Americans have traditionally (for the most part) been culturally unaware of rest of the world. We tend not to speak any language other than English. There is something happening "out there" but we need to step outside of our comfort zone in order to leverage it.

Mac v. PC

Rick Georges, Futurelawyer & Godfather: I should have known this was coming. Where is Grant Griffiths when I need him? Rick has a good point and made his case (quite eloquently I might add) in a recent article in the ABA Journal. There are switching costs and they are painful. I am getting use to the Mac (slowly) but if I want to print something I go back to XP running under Parallels.

So what was the business reason for making the switch? I am now practicing law with the Digital Business Law Group and my partner has a Mac. We are running a VOIP  phone system and, for computing compatibility reasons, I decided to switch. My partner was not about to. You don't see very many people moving from the Mac to the PC.

That said, here's a point that Rick is going to love. The VOIP system did not require XP, but the "Softphone" interface was much more sophisticated than the crude version supplied for the Mac. So no, my partner did not make the switch, but he will be running Parallels for better VOIP functionality. In addition, the CTO for the firm is a Mac evangelist and I have the required support that will facilitate the transition.

I do like the interface. I like the apps the come with OS X. There is lots to like about the Mac, but the transition is not nearly as seamless as the commercials would have you believe. Do not attempt this unless you have a good business reason and support.

Switching Costs

I have made the decision to go the darkside and am switching to the Mac. I am excited about it? No. Are there legitimate business reasons for making the move? Yes. But I have to keep telling myself it will all be worth it in the end! I am quite sure that this is true but currently I am frustrated that things don't quite work the way they use to.

Parallels is making the transition easier since I can still run XP and it appears to work just fine (so far). But, even so, it is just amazing how attached we become to our devices. Now I don't really consider myself a luddite altogether; I mean, I made my living in the tech sector for quite awhile and did more than my fair share of hacking, and yet,  as we speak, I am having to use the arrow keys to go back and forth to the end of the line because I can't figure out (yet) where the frickin' "end" key is on the Mac.

I downloaded Firefox for the Mac because Safari is painfully slow and now I can't find the app. I mean how hard is that? But it is no longer on the "dock" (I guess that is what that damn thing at the bottom of the screen is called, it is not the "taskbar" as in Windows, so I have to learn some new jargon as well) and it is too late to call my buddy that convinced me that indeed this was the way to go. :) You can be damn sure I will be calling in the morning though!

Ok, but there is more to this post than some personal griping, despite the fact that I could go on and on. Most of my "stuff" is now on the "cloud" and that was another reason that I thought it was a good time to make the move. I mean, all I need is a browser right? Wrong! The access device itself is a tool that I became quite attached to. I was comfortable with it. It was my onramp to the online world. Yeah, I can still get online but I did not really expect to be this frustrated. There I go bitching again.

Here's the point (finally), while Apple and Google are going to continue to make inroads into Microsoft's monopoly, there is NOT going to be a major shift from Windows anytime soon. Can you imagine the pain that an organization with 1000 people would go through if you suddenly switched the onramp. The CIO better have his resume updated and be headed for a startup, because brother there would be a mutiny to end all mutinies. It is not like moving from the mainframe to the PC. Why? Because think about it, how many executives and marketing and sales people actually used 3270 screens? Yeah that it was I thought. Now you have all the prima donnas that will be impacted and it ain't going to happen. Not in my lifetime.

Six Degrees of Separation

Some of my earliest telephony recollections were of sitcoms like "The Real McCoy" or "The Andy Griffith Show" where someone is cranking a phone, talking to an operator, and asking to speak to "Mabel". Or even closer to home, my grandmother, wanting to call home to the "old country", and having to call an ATT International operator, give them the name and number of the relative she was trying to contact, and  then sitting anxiously next to the phone for 30 minutes waiting for the call back and the connection to go through. Half of you will have no idea what I am even talking about and the other half (the half that believes Kennedy was a president, not a space center) will think you are having flash backs to a past life.

Now, of course, you are only 10 - 14 digits (depending on if you are calling international) from virtually any person on the planet. Third worlders who may sometimes not have access to running water or electricity on a daily basis, will have a cell number and a Yahoo account. Did you miss that?  Let me say it again slowly. My son knows people in Uganda that only have electricity every other day, may or may not have running water, but have cell phones and can log into a Yahoo account at an Internet cafe.

These kind of reflections usually lead to a nostalgic "we've come a long way baby" or even too an Alvin Toffleresque shock. But where it should lead you is this: To what extent is the information I govern esoteric or public, brokered or distributed? How easy is it for people to connect to my cloud?

In 1909, Guglielmo Marconi calculated that it would take 5.83 radio relay stations to cover the globe. I contend that (the day is soon coming if not already here) if the information someone needs is more than six mouse clicks away, your technology is as antiquated as Mayberry's phone system. – Chris Saah

Are ideas worthless?

Link: Paul Buchheit: Ideas vs Judgment and Execution: Climbing the Mountain. Paul does a nice job here of shedding some light on recent conversations of interest regarding startups. But additional light is shed by some of the commentary. Why? Because perhaps what Paul was commenting on was what others "said, but not what they meant." Huh? That is, to understand what is said, you often have to understand the context. Take away the context and the words have less (or no) meaning.

This is similar to understanding a line of cases that help shape important precedent. You must understand the entire line to understand what is being "said"--reading the cases in isolation will not produce the right understanding. You have to follow the "linked list" up and down to get the context.

Case law represents an abstracted communications system (a language). Studying the law is like studying a foreign language, except it is written in English, which makes it "doubly confusing." The is true of the online universe as well, unless you are immersed in the context you don't "get" what is being said.

Old school executives are hopelessly out of touch because they have not mastered the new language. Learning a new language is tough. It is probably the most complex and important technology that man has ever invented (of course that might be given man too much credit but I will have to leave that for another post).

If the CIA likes it, why wouldn't a law firm?

Link: Google has lots to do with intelligence. Search as a concept and technology is SO BIG that we have just started scratching the surface of what it can do. I wrote about it in Search, KM & the Practice of Law and probably understated the case.

Why would I pay thousands (often hundreds of thousands) to have search functionality when I can get the world's best search technology for next to nothing in some cases (e.g. Google Mini, Google Desktop, Google Apps)?

How much time is spent within law firms searching for stuff? Some significant percentage, all day, every day. Who pays for the inability to search effectively? Clients. Think there may be some competitive advantage to improving this capability? The days when you could keep clients in the dark are long since over.

Wake up and smell the search!

Can't Live Everywhere Online!

Link: Loic Le Meur Blog: My social map is totally decentralized but I want it back on my blog. I think that Loic has got it right. I don't want to "live" in twenty different places online, although I might want to hangout in that many places or more. I want a gateway to all those places (via single sign-on) and I want that to be from my personal space (aka web-tones).

Web Content Management Goes Open Source

Link: Pirillo Starts Large Scale Community CMS Project. So what? Well here is the so what. The search engines (is there still more than one?) love quality content. However, quality content is hard to do even with the best Content Management System (CMS) and almost impossible to do without one.

Try developing more than a handful of pages in raw HTML and then managing the resulting site, it gets old quick. A CMS makes a daunting task more manageable and more accessible to the masses of business people (read lawyers) that might want to "give it a go." Why? Because search engine optimization (SEO) first requires that you have something of value to optimize, instead of just the "brochureware" found on most legal websites. An affordable (and "kick ass") CMS will help take your site to the next level. Sure Typepad and Wordpress do an adequate job today, but what Chris appears to be attempting will "kick it up a notch."

Stay tuned...

Flip: The Zen of Less is More

Link: Camcorder Brings Zen to the Shoot - New York Times. This a brilliant product (low end camcorder) not because of the features it has but because of those it lacks. Almost all of us have experienced "remote control hell"--the sinking feeling that the damn gadget has too many options and ALL you want to do is something very simple. The options are a source of confusion. Confusion leads to lack of use.

Simplicity is one of the reasons that Google succeeded in search where others failed. Hey, ALL I want to do is search. Don't present me with a screen filled with news and other trivia. If I wanted news I would go to CNN or their competition (or today my favorite news blog).

In a world full of complexity and technological sophistication functional simplicity  is priceless!

Making the Case for Law 2.0

Paul Lippe, founder and CEO of Legal OnRamp, makes the case for Law 2.0 here. His primary thesis? Well, it should sound familiar to Web-Tones readers: "cloud computing and Web 2.0 apps will transform the practice of law." OK, but Paul adds some deep insights as to why this will occur. There may be nothing new under the sun but "there are an infinite number of angles that have yet to be explored." Paul argues, and rightfully so, that corporate counsel, the largest purchasers of legal services, will be the prime movers for the "sheep like behavior" of most firms. They are starting to use these technologies in house and are beginning to see the ROI that can be achieved. It will not be long before they starting demanding that there service providers do the same.

Eat lunch or be lunch. You decide.

Google Apps: Raising the Bar

Link: Google Spreadsheets Adds Gadgets, a Directory of Features. Google Apps just keep getting better and we are ONLY somewhere circa 1982 (in PC historical terms) in the evolution of the "cloud." As a recent convert (to the actual platform as opposed to just the concept) this is exciting stuff! Why? Not because I create or use a ton of spreadsheets. I don't and never have. BUT rather because this is indicative of the platform's maturation and the likely pace at which it will progress. In five years PC's, other than as useful access devices, are going to seem quaint (excepts for a few special purpose apps). Most of what we do from a computing perspective will be "on the wires."

What will this mean for the practice of law? It will be transformative. The seeds are already firmly planted. The early adopters are already well beyond the initial learning curve. Eat lunch or be lunch, the choice is yours!

Social Networking Sites for Business

Link: Online Business Networking: 2 Horse Globalization Race - ReadWriteWeb. I believe that the value of these sites for businesses of all kinds is still underestimated. Sure there is tons of press for what the kids are doing on MySpace and Facebook, and there is no doubt that "the kids" have some disposable income, but there are opportunities for "serious" (and not so serious) business people as well, linking with each other AND linking with the kids. Witness how much press LinkedIn has been getting lately.

I suspect that this business value is already being realized by early adopters of the non-tech sort, who are content to reap the benefits and feel no compulsion (business savvy as they are) to share with their colleagues and competitors. This is an example of what Doc Searls calls the "because of" effect, those that figure how to prosper not by developing the technologies, but because of them.

There are some old school attorneys that have likely begun to crack to code, but this pales in comparison to the next wave (and the one after that) of attorneys that have cut their teeth on digital technologies--I fully expect them to completely alter the way law is practiced. I hope that I can run fast enough to keep pace!

Google Apps Rock!

Why? Because of anywhere/anytime/any device(soon) access to all the necessary basic computing infrastructure that any small to medium size business might need! All the e-Bilities are in place: scalability, reliability & availability. In addition, the apps are highly functional today and are only going to get better as they mature.

The new Google Sites wiki functionality (now part of Google Apps) is amazingly easy to use (i.e. all wsywig). But, what has so far been under reported is that you get Google search functionality as a "built in" part of the deal. Sure, this feature is an obvious one to include, BUT the implications of having world class search functionality as part of your organization's Intranet are more powerful than I anticipated, and I "geek on this stuff."

For example, a law firm could track all matter documents (PDF or otherwise) in one centralized location and have all them "searchable" after a few clicks. Simply create a new site (in minutes) for each matter and you have the "foundational building blocks" for a world class document management system. All of this at a cost of $50/user per year. To say that this is an amazing value is an understatement!

Worried about security? Who isn't? But do you really think that your documents are more secure in that server room down the hall? Just ask 2/3 of the lawyers in New Orleans whether or not they think that is true. When is the last time you verified that your nightly backups were working up to snuff? What would happen if all of a sudden you needed to add three new offices nationwide?

It's the architecture that matters and the "cloud" is unlike anything that has come before it. It looks like it is a two vendor race and if anyone doubts that Google will be a serious competitor in this space (for businesses of ALL sizes) then they simply do NOT get it!

Musings on cloud computing--finding the onramp!

Link: Ericsson predicts demise of hotspots | InfoWorld | News | 2008-03-10 | By Mikael Rickn�s, IDG News Service. Ok, here is where the rubber meets the road. I am in the process of launching a "digital business" of sorts and considering all the usual options for telephony, collaboration suites (including email), front office & back office functionality and other similar "startup issues." Much of the advice that I have pointed to in recent posts is therefore both timely and relevant, personally.

This startup will be have multiple locations from day one, and therefore computing logistics are more complicated, or at least they would have been in the old universe. I have found everything I need on the cloud, competitively priced and from vendors that are proven and around for the long haul.  I considered some "old school" functionality, because some of the offerings I was looking at were arguably more "mature" in this space.

But, I quickly punted on this idea. I want everything (and I mean everything) available on the cloud, accessible anywhere/anytime there is an available internet connection, and as the link above implies, that will soon be everywhere that I happen to be with a laptop or a phone. If I want to add an employee/partner in California, Alaska, Paris, or Argentina, I simply plug them into the existing infrastructure and give them a virtual extension from my VOIP provider, and bingo, they are on board.

I assume that they have a PC, a cell phone and the ability to connect. I don't provide any of that. They are required to use the tools that they already own, sure we will be happy to expense cell phone minutes where the VOIP line is not tactically feasible, but that is the exception rather than the rule. I don't care what their favorite device or OS is. Want to use a Mac, or Linux, that is completely up to you. Want to use a Blackberry, a Treo, or an iPhone--knock yourself out.

I am confident that this is the right way to go? 100%! Will there be some bumps in the road? You bet. But they will be surmountable. The cloud is the future and is only going to get better, and better. The ability to scale the infrastructure, for a fraction of what it would have cost in the old universe, is enough to convince me that this is the only way to go. I want to leverage enabling technologies, but I do not want to manage the speeds, feeds, wires and the rest of what goes along with it. I have been there and done that, and for me that game is over!

More Startup Advice

Link: A Couple of My Rules for Startups - Blog Maverick. Mark Cuban jumps in with more startup advice. Many of these rules apply to all startups, including law firms. The beautiful thing about the Net (at least one of them) is that you can get quality information from people who have been there. This is not "fad advice" but advice from people who either have lived it, or are living it.  Of course, not all of it applies for every startup--these "rules" should not be taken as formulaic--it is simply quality information that you can't find anywhere else, including the b-schools. Why? Because academics often live in a parallel universe--that is, they are often looking at and teaching the past.

It is all beta, all the time!

Steve Jobs once said (or is given credit for saying) the following: "real artists ship." Now you can read whatever you like into this quote, but for me it says that you have to build something worthwhile and get it out the door. Nowadays that means build it quick and get some feedback so you can iterate again. It is all beta all the time. The marketplace is far too chaotic to think that you can simply engineer your way to a successful launch of anything, despite the fact the some high quality "engineering" might go into the initial release.

That said, it is important to get certain things right during that initial release (and by release I mean a product, service, or other kind of offering) because your are going to have to live with your decision(s) far longer than you might think. Once you commit resources to  something you become attached to it--and the more resources (e.g. money, time, sweat equity, etc.) the more attached you become.

Technology vendors (and others) often call this phenomenon "lock in."  It may cost you plenty to ante up, but it will cost you even more to switch. That is why when you are creating something new or adopting a complex suite of new technologies, it is important to experiment early and often. In other words you must quickly throw as much "crap on the wall" as you can, and see what sticks, before you pay for it or before you ship. This may sound simplistic, but it is how wicked problems are best solved.

However, this model for decision making is not the way things are normally done by "serious people." It makes them uncomfortable. We are accustom to believing that if we study something long enough we will find the "right" answer. The problem is that we often do not understand the "right" questions to ask. The web is the world's largest library and its ability to shed light on most topics is undervalued, IMHO. Those that are attempting to solve "wicked problems" (which is most of us these days) need to become more effective information consumers. Why? So that we can iterate through the decision cycle a lot faster and more effectively than we have in the past.

1000 Fans?

Link: Kevin Kelly -- The Technium. Kevin Kelly is one of my favorite elder statesman of the web and his advice regarding "1000 true fans" is applicable to any aspiring digital entrepreneur (he is specifically referring to artists) IMHO. You accumulate 1000 high quality customers and you have not only a viable, but more likely a thriving, small business on your hands.

The point is that you don't need to hit it out of the park--singles and doubles are good if you can get them consistently, the lonely triples and occasional home runs are simply gravy. The technologies that Kevin talks about (i.e. mostly RSS and blogs) are now mature and easy enough for the most "technophobe"  to master. All it takes is a little diligence, persistence and hard work. If you aren't willing to do the latter than "get a job!"

Feed the network and the network feeds you?

Link: Innovation comes cheap, says Google engineer Kevin Marks | The Social - CNET News.com. Clearly that is Google's vision vis-a-vis improving the ecosystem. Whenever the ecosystem prospers, Google gets a "little" (perhaps not so little) size of the increased pie. Makes sense for Google, but can it work for others whose footprint is not the same?

Can it work in other industries, far removed from the valley, and not necessarily tech centric per se? Well I believe that the answer is yes and no. It can work for other industries perhaps, but they will be tech centric in their own unique ways, creating their own ecosystems...

Here come the boys from Redmond, again!

Link: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Rumor: Microsoft about to unveil web-apps    strategy. Really, no one should be surprised that MS will move aggressively to "cloud." Remember that Ray Ozzie, the father of both Lotus Notes and Groove, understands a thing or two about collaborative computing. Google has yet to prove that it really understands application integration at the kind sophisticated level that users have come to expect from MS Office. It is embrace and extend, yet again. Google has an opportunity, but this game is just getting started and when MS comes to cloud, they are coming strong. Apps is what they do, this is their turf, and they are not going to give up much without a serious fight.

But in many ways, it doesn't really matter. What really matters is that consumers are going to benefit both from the "innovation wars" and from the "price wars." The really interesting "stuff" will be happening elsewhere...

Taking on Google?

Link: The Next Google Search Challenger: Blekko. It is clear that there is still plenty of room for innovation in Search, but it is a lot less clear, if/when the innovation occurs that it is: 1) compelling enough to unseat Google; or 2) cannot be replicated by Google, even if it takes a ton of money to do so. Maybe the play here is that Google buys these guys? Many people took on MS and failed. Google won by inventing an entirely new category, same as MS won over IBM.

I don't believe that there is any examples of a dominant company (in recent history) that was unseated by an upstart in a domain where it is dominant. That obviously does not mean that it is not possible, but I would certainly not bet on it.

Give me bandwidth or give me death!

Link: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Illuminating cities: Cisco's grand ambition. Cisco wants to "light up" entire cities with IP technology, fascinating stuff! I would like to reside in one of these cities, where bandwidth is presumably plentiful.

Every time time I wait on a download, watching the progress bar, I am reminded of the fact that we spend too much of our CPU brain cycles waiting for things to happen on these machines, when we could spend it consuming and creating.

When the walls come tumbling down!

Link: Amazon removes the database scaling wall (Scripting News). Dave has nailed it here. It may take a little time to mature, but there are no deal stoppers. Google and MS will not be left behind, so expect there offerings before too long.

Most (if not all) of the analysis so far has been regarding how easy this infrastructure will make it to scale then next "Twitter" (or YouTube etc.). However, the interesting thing from my perspective is how easy it will make it to scale "business computing platforms"--where I believe the next wave of innovation will come from.

Tech smart entrepreneurs (i.e. outside of technology) will find ways to transform any number of sectors in ways (and at a cost) that was heretofore not possible. It is what "the Good Doctor"  has called the "because of" factor.

Uptime: Serious Business Indeed!

Link: RackSpace Outage Hits Home � GigaOM. No need to pile on here, but clearly this is an issue that is going to become and more and more important going forward. It is not clear whether this could have happened on Amazon's or Google's grid, but you can bet that the "big boys" are the only ones that will be left standing when all of this plays out in the next few years.

Reliability, availability and scalability are not just buzzwords...this was/is one of the reasons that mainframes remained strategic computing platforms (for some businesses) long after they were considered dead. We are not headed back to mainframes, but we do want the uptime that they represented and an order of magnitude more. Welcome to the new IT. Google is IBM. Amazon and others want a piece of the new monopoly.

The more things change...

What comes next?

Link: Intel's Fundamental Advance in Transistor Design Extends Moore's Law, Computing Performance. Here Intel discusses why Moore's law continues to rock n' roll. What this means is clearly that the trend toward cheaper and cheaper CPU cycles remains as robust as ever.

BUT, the more interesting question is what will cheap cycles mean to businesses of all types? IBM discusses the need for business model innovation (BMI) in the advertising industry here. The general takeaway, however, is that BMI is likely to drive growth across industry sectors. The availability of cheap CPU cycles is the engine that will drive the innovation.

The mantra of "innovate or die" will drive the legal industry, medicine and the mom and pop cleaners down the road. It is at the intersection of Silicon Valley and main street where the next engine of growth will emerge...the results are (as ever) likely to surprise us in novel ways.

It is the Platform Stupid!

Link: Amazon S3 Exceeds 99.99% Uptime. What Amazon is doing with S3 is remarkable indeed. We are going back to the future. When I first went to work for Shell's Information Center in Houston, it bragged that it had the most compute power in one building outside of NASA. Amazon's computing power, for obvious reasons, does not live in one building, but the level of reliability it is achieving is "NASA like" and perhaps better, and its computing power probably exceeds it. There was plenty not to like about mainframe computing, but in the three plus years I spent at Shell, I hardly remmeber anytime at all when they were not "up and running, EVER!

The time is quickly approaching where, as consumers, we are less and less willing to accept services that do not provide this kind of availability, scalability and reliability. You are either going to deliver on the promise or quickly find yourself without customers--simple as that!

The CIO is Here to Stay!

Link: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Twilight of the CIO. As much as I enjoy reading Nick's blog, from time to time he will post something so utterly absurd that it makes me question whether or not he simply looks for data that fits neatly into his IT vision or his next book?

What is it that will make the CIO disappear? Some executive that has learned to use a browser and a couple of Web 2.0 apps suddenly is tech savvy enough to understand enterprise messaging  (even if outsourced), data warehousing, knowledge management, disaster recovery, application development, anywhere/anytime access, security and a host of additional "stuff" that CIO's worry about on a daily basis?

This is the danger of "pure punditry" --credibility in  a particular space all of a sudden turns into a license to pontificate about matters wherein they know very little.

I can assure you that any CIO worth his salt (and CEO for that matter) does not believe that CIO's will be disappearing anytime soon. The job, despite often under appreciated, is becoming more important not less!

Anywhere/Anytime Computing

Link: Futurelawyer: Citrix to Enter Server and Desktop Virtualization Markets with Acquisition of XenSource. Rick Georges  (aka Futurelawyer) has a great post about happenings in the "virtualization space" and the ability to get to his "stuff" anytime he needs or wants, and for Rick that is often and always. But that is something we ALL want and need.

My good friend Chris Saah calls this "PC 2.0" as a play on "Web 2.0" because, like it or not, most of us are still drinking the MS Kool Aid and probably will be for quite some time. As we become more and more wired we feel a constant need for access to our computing resources on demand--anywhere/anytime. That's where Citrix and VMware come in. Expect for things to remain "hot" with respect to these offerings as companies continue to look for ways to satisfy the need.

It's the Apps Stupid

Link: Director Magazine—for business leaders. By all means consolidate servers and outsource commodity infrastructure by buying it "off the grid," BUT to argue that IT doesn't matter anymore is just plain stupid. Now granted, it depends on how you define IT, and if that definition only includes "speeds & feeds" then, OK, the argument is plausible.

But those that make this argument often believe that the "speeds & feeds" is all there is to IT--that is, they completely ignore the power of applications. Name any innovative company, in almost any industry, and it is a safe bet that they have developed their own "killer apps" within the context of what they do. Likewise, there is all this talk about industries being disrupted by new entrants, name a disruptor that has not innovated in the apps space. You can't because it's software that is driving the disruption.

In the Zone: Jamming in Business

The concept of flow has been around for a long time. Sports fans and participants know it as being in the zone--a magical experience for both the athlete and those fortunate enough to catch the performance. Many of us have these experiences in which our performance appears effortless, but which actually is produced, truth be known, from years of preparation. The interesting thing about "flow" is not that it occurs, but rather why is it so infrequent?

When flow occurs in a business setting it feels like the kind of jamming that jazz musicians are addicted to. Someone does/says something interesting or unusual and a spark is created--someone else riffs off the spark and more sparks fly. There is a kind of shared energy in the room that is palpable.

If only you could find a way to  "bottle it?"

Business Blogs

Link: Business Blogs: How to Build A Better Blog: Top 5 Reasons to Start a Blog for Your Business. I think that this post is dead on for the most part. There is a huge untapped market for people that realize that something important is going on and are putting a toe in the water. Fear (of all things tech) is probably the biggest "hangup" but a certain percentage will overcome this.

The biggest untapped market are professionals and academics, but I suspect that this is the proverbial "tip of the iceberg"--this game is just getting started.

Librarians R' US

Got questions? The web has answers. When I was in the technology industry, especially when working hands on, but even when doing more "strategic" consulting, the web was a constant companion. It was the only way to deal with the complexity that presented itself on a daily basis. Discovering Google I started to hone my search skills, twenty different ways of asking the same question. I developed a six sense for what was good information (depending on the source) and what might be shaky (to say the least). What I was developing was the skills that good librarians possess. The ability to effectively and quickly search the information space to narrow where the possible relevant answers were likely to come from.

Now in law school, I find myself doing the same thing. Lexis and Westlaw are not my starting points. I want to know what the "infospace knows" about a particular topic. Who has summarized a particular area of the law in a way that quickly points me in a direction that will dramatically shorten the research cycle? Is it a book on Amazon? A website dealing with media or first amendment law? A description of how to write an appellate brief from a practicing master?

Now I am fascinated with patterns and I can assure you that if I were studying medicine, or engineering, or physics, or you name it--or making a living in those fields--the web would still be a constant companion. The skills of a librarian are starting to take on a whole new dimension with respect to knowledge workers and what they do, day in and day out.

Tags: Search, Google, Librarians

Blogger A List

The conversation raging here is much to do about nothing. Of course there is a blogger "A" List, so what? That is a poor argument for "the new boss is the same as the old boss." Things have changed in a huge way, to think otherwise is to argue that a slave could have produced a work equivalent to "Leaves of Grass" (assuming the required erudition) and it would have been published and widely distributed. No way, like it or not Walt (whom I think is THE GREAT AMERICAN POET) had access to the necessary channels that a slave did not. But today, if you self publish something as good as Leaves of Grass on the Net, it will be found and admired, just a matter of time.

That my friend is progress...

Related Tags: Doc Searls, Web 2.0, Blogger A List

Beyond Moore's Law

IBM has found a way to double its processor speed by squeezing silicon as opposed to making transistors smaller. Even if Moore's Law does not continue to hold, although experts think it will for the next couple of decades, it seems that computers will continue to get faster and cheaper. Massive computing power, inexpensively priced, has the potential to transform the dynamics of entire industries. Consider what Google is doing with its data centers and you get an idea of the scale and power of cheap CPU cycles.

Tags: Google, Web 2.0, Web2.0

Year of Open Source?

Wow Sun is thinking about an open source version of Solaris! There seems to be more and more momentum building in the ABM (Anything But Microsoft) crowd toward finally coming up with an answer to Windows and MS Office. There is very little doubt that Google is going to do an Office Suite, probably based on OpenOffice from Sun, and that they will attempt to leverage this into a free, robust and scalable software development platform, perhaps combining it with a Google Desktop and you have the makings of a very interesting value proposition, both for Google and for the open source community. Why? Because Google is probably the only company on the planet that could actually pull it off! They currently have a virtual monopoly on search (for now) and this advantage might be just enough to sustain them through the onslaught that is sure to be coming from the Gorilla in Redmond. As Geoff Moore is fond of saying, "let the games begin." No matter who ultimately prevails in this clash of the titans, the consumer (and the open source community) is likely to benefit in a big way from the fierce competition.

Tags: Web 2.0, Web2.0, Solaris, Open Source, Google, Sun

It's the Platform Stupid, Revisited

Open Source Radioware is the latest Doc Searls rant on the Linux Journal about what an emerging platform that allows small to medium size radio stations (is there such a thing?) to do what their hardware/software budgets might not otherwise allow.

I have yet to find an open source legal platform that would allow the same thing, but if it is not currently "out there", it most assuredly is coming soon to a theater near you. These offerings have the potential of changing the rules of the game for small to medium size law firms. A low cost, high impact, legal computing platform could be quite disruptive, allowing smaller players to fish in ponds that they were previously excluded from. Given that traditionally, the larger the organization, the slower it adapts, significant "first mover" advantages might be there for the taking. Already competitively priced commercial offerings that rely heavily on open source technologies are starting to point the way in the knowledge management space.

Tags: Web 2.0, Web2.0, Law 2.0, KM

Google This?

Whether Google is trying to protect trade secrets or its users, by taking a stand it reminds us just how important privacy concerns are, and how readily they could be abused. Although Washington might think that the public is willing to "lay down" when it comes to complex constitutional issues, I believe a number of constituencies are starting to gather strength in numbers and will fight potential abuses if the government attempts to overplay its hand. After all, "eternal vigilance" is not just a cliche, it is a reminder of what is required to maintain a democracy, and a united citizenry, of all political persuasions, can send a powerful message.

Tags: Google

Houston Marathon & RFID

Our daughter (the syllable counter) is running in the Aramco Half Marathon, an event that is part of the Houston Marathon and will be wearing an RFID chip on her running shoes that will allow us to track her progress real-time. As parents we are delighted that enabling technologies compress space in a manner that permits us to participate in an a significant life event, not quite like being their live and cheering her on, but somewhat better than hearing about it after the fact. Of course, this is just a small example of how technologies, riding on the Info Highway, are capable of bringing families and other social networks closer together in ways previously unimaginable.

RFID technology is also playing a significant role in advanced logistics systems (think WalMart), allowing the tracking of goods (at the pallet level) as they move through the distribution channel. Before long tracking will occur at the product level and the fear is (fueled mostly by big brother conspiracy mongers) that our privacy will be jeopardized as RFID enabled products enter the home. Perhaps there is some merit to this argument but we will cross the bridge when we get to it, for now I am happy that it lets us participate in a significant accomplishment, go Rachey!

Tags: RFID

Infotainment?

What is infotainment? Well Wikipedia defines it as soft journalism, a kind of combination of journalism and entertainment, however I used the term a few years back to mean marketing information presented in an entertaining way. Just goes to show you how powerful I am at starting new memes and moving the popular culture forward (right). Nonetheless, the idea was that marketing collateral had to inform, educate and entertain if it was going to capture my interest, and that companies should use the new media to do exactly that. The use of Internet audio and video to achieve these goals is starting to gain some traction, but it better be done right or the consumer is one click away from making your pitch yesterday's news. I recently was lured to a site that promised a video of their product, one that I was on casually interested in, and it may have captured my attention except that the audio was mostly garbled, but being a somewhat patient geek, I even re-booted to see if the problem was on my end to no avail. Needless to say most consumers are probably not this patient, so while the idea is on point the experience needs to be flawless to achieve the desired effect.

Tags: Infotainment

Google Culture

I perused an article in BusinessWeek (December 2005) highlighting the culture at Google and while this "stuff" is not all that new for high flying tech companies, Google's "quirkyness" seems to be in a class all its own. Exercise facilities, free food, pets at the workplace...OK most companies cannot afford to do this, but some that can don't. Is this all some "left coast" wackiness or is Google trying to make employees' lives a little easier, more convenient, less stressful etc.? Are less stressed out employees more productive, the answer seems obvious. What if I were to say that one of the nation's largest insurers (among other things) USAA has many of these conveniences in their complex (OK maybe the food is not free and you can't have dogs at work but there is a Cleaners and lots of other conveniences), would you still think it was wacky? Not likely. Both Google and USAA realize that happy employees are productive employees, and they tend to hang around longer. Corporate culture matters, and if it is unique and genuine it can become a differentiator for companies both large and small.

Tags: Google

Velocity = Productivity?

From online banking, to online buying, to online snooping (the legal kind) to you name it, the Internet reduces the amount of time that it takes us to make decisions. Having the world's largest library available at our fingertips drives what economists call "transaction costs" (in lay terms the time it takes to research a purchase) significantly lower. This has lots of implications with respect to the choices that we have available to us that were not available before because we had no way of discovering them. I believe this is part and parcel of the long tail argument (if not the whole damn thing).

In general, however, apart from purchase decisions, the ability to make all kinds of decisions faster should have a significant positive impact on economic (and personal) productivity across the board. Empirical data is probably hard to come by in this space, but if anyone has references I would love to see them. For me all roads lead to Google and I am rarely disappointed vis-a-vis the quality of information that the Web produces (i.e. it is almost always useful to my decision making process even if not always on point).