Oct 13 2005

Collaborate via blog or wiki?

Since my post about the Construction Computing Show, there has been a meeting of the NCCTP marketing group at which the event was discussed, followed by a steady flow of emails and attachments about the NCCTP stand layout, etc, between the five participants. Perhaps we should have practiced what we preach and used a collaboration application to coordinate our work?

Even if we could agree which provider’s solution to use (and get over allowing competitors access to one of the systems), I think a construction collaboration solution would have been overkill for this mini-project. But what about using blogs or wikis to develop and share our ideas? (BTW: earlier today, I recommended a couple of explanations from Silicon.com – see blogging and wikis – to introduce the concepts to a couple of colleagues).

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/collaborate_via-2/

Oct 13 2005

Teleworking: motivation factors

Following on from my last post, the same Silicon.com article quotes a Citrix study which reveals strong support for the idea that flexible working will deliver greater productivity and a more motivated workforce, though it admits opposition to remote working often relates to the perceived death of ‘the office culture’ and the breakdown of teamwork rather than concerns over security. "Other respondents were more worried about a lack of motivation if they weren’t under the watchful eye of their bosses."

Having worked from home for much of the past eight years, I have never needed a boss keeping an eye on me to keep me motivated (deadlines are often motivation enough). Regular trips into the office to hot-desk, or arranging off-site meetings with colleagues at mutually convenient locations and times, help keep me in touch with ‘the office’ and other members of my team, as do a steady stream of telephone chats, emailed jokes, etc.

Maybe the ‘watchful eye’ comment reflects bosses‘ insecurities? Perhaps they like to think their staff can’t be trusted to work unless they are keeping en eye on them?

Again, perhaps our modern extranet technologies can help in this respect too. While I hope there are few ‘Big Brothers’ out there, I know that managers can use the reporting tools embedded in many collaboration applications to monitor their employees’ work. But let’s not get precious about staff working nine-to-five (some of my most productive and/or creative periods are late-night sessions in front of the computer). Unless an individual’s homeworking requires them to be in constant telephone, web or email contact, why not trust them to work at a time that best suits them so long as the work is undertaken to the required quality and by the specified deadline?

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/teleworking_mot/

Oct 13 2005

Teleworking secure?

Further to my post about teleworking (6 October), I read today in Silicon.com that increased levels of home working may jeopardise security. The article, ‘Flexibility boom presents security challenge‘, quotes Ross Paul from Websense: "If employees are taking their laptops home and surfing the web in their own time they could have almost anything on there from Trojans to spyware to keyloggers." Companies who have spent years securing their perimeters are now in danger of undoing all their hard work if they don’t put in place education and solutions for dealing with portable media and remote working, he warned.

At least when it comes to today’s remotely hosted project extranet solutions, there is no danger of companies’ perimeters being breached. Their project data is already being securely hosted outside their firewalls, and most hosting environments have sophisticated measures in place to prevent upload or download of security hazards such as Trojans.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/teleworking_sec/

Oct 11 2005

Construction Computing Show

The Construction Computing Show at the Barbican in London is now less than a month away. I will be co-presenting a seminar on the first day (9 November at 12.45pm) with an NCCTP colleague, Duncan Mactear from 4Projects, on the topic "Making Collaboration Pay". The NCCTP will also have a stand at the event as part of its effort to educate the UK construction industry about ‘project extranets’. In light of my recent experience at PropIT, I hope this event is well attended.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/construction_co-8/

Oct 11 2005

Not THE Paul Wilkinson?

Since my book was published, some people have remarked upon the existence of other authors called Paul Wilkinson, most notably the illustrious Professor Paul Wilkinson of St Andrew’s University School of International Relations. As far as I know he is no relation (and nor is the former professional footballer of the same name, now reserve team coach at Cardiff City), and I should not be confused with the archaeologist Dr Paul Wilkinson of the Kent Archaeological Field School who wrote a book to accompany a BBC documentary about Pompeii (while Googling our name, I did, however, notice that one of the latter’s colleagues in a Study Group for Roman Pottery goes by the name of Robert Philpott – almost the same name as Rob Phillpot, one of the leading figures at Ozzie extranet vendor Aconex).

Looking on Amazon.co.uk today, I found that books by the other PWs currently rank ahead of mine. The Professor has two books – 91,326 and 46,971 in the Amazon sales rank – while Dr PW’s Pompeii is ranked 76,057. My book ranks a humble 138,231st (though an improvement on the 175,000+ it was a couple of weeks ago). Mind you, Dr PW’s archaeological surveying text book is ranked 930,063 – it makes you wonder just how extensive the Amazon sales rank is!

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/not_the_paul_wi/

Oct 10 2005

Being too innovative

Outside of the ‘project extranet’ field, I have witnessed at close hand the introduction to the market of a new software-based project analysis and planning methodology, but (perhaps as with any new technology that doesn’t fit into an existing market category) take-up has been slow. I was therefore struck by an article by Joel Orr – who is in a similar position, with Kollabnet – in Machine Design. In it, Joel suggests innovation can expose apparent weaknesses within an organisation: "corporate executives have difficulty believing that someone else’s innovation might bring about double-digit improvements in their own business". He goes on:

Innovation is an unnatural act. It induces fear, unmitigated by the promise of great gains in productivity. The fear is fear of personal loss – prestige; power; respect. The promises are of gains for the organization, not for the individual.

In short, we need to somehow override individual’s concerns about their own status, power, rewards, etc. What might help would be a new organisational focus on the good of the team, the department, the company…. In the collaboration sphere, for example, it makes little sense for organisations to reward individuals solely on the basis of each one’s own achievements as opposed to how successfully they have collaborated with others. In my book, I suggest:

"managers could amend employee job descriptions to emphasise team performance and, while accepting there is still room for individual brilliance, place less emphasis on individual achievement alone. … Collaborative working should be rewarded, thus motivating and incentivising employees to change their attitudes and behaviours….

"Business process legacy can also inhibit effective collaboration. Organisations may be tempted simply to carry on doing things the way they always did – ignoring the danger that, by doing so, they will always get what they always got. Instead, they may need to challenge accepted processes and thinking. Where collaboration tools are applied in organisations that do not encourage collaborative processes, it is not surprising that the tools may appear to fail."

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/being_too_innov/

Oct 10 2005

Web growth

According to the BBC, the world-wide web is growing at a rate which now exceeds that before the dot.com bubble burst in 2000. A study by Netcraft claims the web has grown grew by more than 17 million sites in the past 12 months, fuelled by small businesses going online, firms making the most of web advertising schemes and spammers. In its October 2005 survey, Netcraft found a total of 74.4 million web addresses – in August 1995, the total was just 18,957.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/web_growth/

Oct 07 2005

BricsCad Vista v. Microsoft Vista

Best known for its CAD solutions, Belgium-based BricsCad also has BricsCad Vista, which it describes as: "the first professional Internet based communication, collaboration and project management platform allowing unlimited use for a yearly flat fee, encouraging organizations to open up Vista’s powerful feature set to all projects and all people involved – in the company and externally." (I note Ralph Grabowski’s WorldCAD Access blog has just questioned the solution’s pricing structure.)

It’s an interesting development for a business which was spun out of Bricsnet in 2002. Bricsnet was previously BricsWorks and, having developed the eponymous building design software, then launched its Building|Center ASP project collaboration solution in 2000, not long after the company had gone public in 1999. Bricsnet’s founder and CEO, Erik de Keyser, then led a management buy-out of the CAD software parts of the business, with BricsCad supposedly "completely dedicated to CAD". Now it seems BricsCad is going into direct competition with its former parent Bricsnet.

One other thought occurs – regarding the branding. When Vista was launched (it appears to have been around for a few months), BricsCad probably thought it was a fairly safe name to use. We now know that the new Microsoft operating system (previously codenamed ‘Longhorn’) is to be called Vista, so I wonder if there may be some branding issues? Just two months ago, Silicon.com was reporting Windows Vista name spat gives Microsoft a headache as some software vendors were already using the Vista marque. I wonder if BricsCad is also concerned about possible confusion between the Microsoft operating system and its specialised software, or perhaps wonders if customers or end-users will assume it is somehow tied – for better or for worse – to the Microsoft OS?

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/bricscad_vista_/

Oct 07 2005

New skills, new era

Tim at Cutting Through reads the same newspaper as me. He, too, was struck by an article in today’s Guardian about the changes in media habits of the current generation of 14-21-year-olds: a third of all young people online have launched their own blog or website.

As Tim points out, this generation of the ‘ultrawired’ will be joining the nation’s workforce in the next few years, bringing new expectations and technological capabilities. Not only does this threaten the future of the corporate IT function, I think it may also bring radical changes to the devices and software routinely employed. It may also change the nature of organisations.

I point out in my book that mobile telephones are no longer solely used for voice communications, but have evolved into more sophisticated devices that offer personal organisers, text messaging, web-browsing, email, cameras, video and music playback, and games. … And the computer in the living room might at different times be used additionally as a television, digital radio, music player, video recorder, digital editing suite, games console and – with VOIP – even a telephone.

Moreover, the emergence of reliable, always-on wireless technologies could mark the end of the proliferation of separate devices with built-in processors. We may find ourselves using one central unit to connect to the internet, combining the roles of firewall, router, switch, wireless access point and computer, and capable of managing data, voice and other audio, and images and videos. Depending on our different needs, we could then use a variety of simple interface devices that send and receive data from this central unit for telephony, audio and video entertainment, office communications, etc.

Combine these developments one stage further and we may find ourselves using mobile devices that act as conduits to applications and data – for both work and leisure – remotely hosted in a variety of secure repositories somewhere out on the internet.

Looking for a life-style that takes advantage of the mobile working opportunities offered by such new technologies, some individuals may opt to work as freelances, undertaking a succession of contracts of their own choice instead of working for an employer. Just as small firms might combine with others with complementary skills and/or resources, so individual professionals could combine with other independent practitioners to compete for work and then form part of the multi-disciplinary team appointed to undertake projects.

Being formed of a group of independent ‘e-lances’ or ‘tech-nomads’, the operational overheads of such a multi-disciplinary consortium are also likely to be lower, making their services more cost-effective – an advantage likely to be underlined if the team also uses low-cost collaboration technology to manage and share its data. The increasing ease-of-use and growing reliability of IT, the growing use of ‘Software as a Service’ or ASP solutions, and the (slowly) growing numbers of mobile, home-based workers may also accelerate organisational changes. Corporate IT departments may reduce in size or even become unnecessary.

Taken further (and probably stretching the blue skies stuff too far!), the organisations themselves might also become smaller or even break up altogether. Could we see loose ‘federations’ of self-employed individuals each recruited to undertake particular roles (from senior management down to the workface)? Such individuals might also – as far as IT is concerned – be self-servicing, taking out contracts with hardware and service providers to obtain and use the mobile devices they need to interface with the software and data repositories they routinely use for their work and play.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/tim_at_cutting_/

Oct 07 2005

SaaS: view from the trenches

An ASPnews.com article presents some of the pros and cons of Software as a Service (SaaS) from the perspective of an independent software vendor (Chris Miranda of eMeta) who is clearly an SaaS enthusiast. He added a couple of advantages that I hadn’t fully realised.

One argument that will find favour with softwaver vendors is that "Piracy issues cease to exist in the SaaS world — they simply go away. Since users have to visit a Web site to gain access to software, what can be pirated?"

From the customers’ perspective, another advantage arises from the lower costs involved in changing between different SaaS providers: "software quality will likely increase industry-wide, due to the heightened competition that should result from lower switching costs. Both vendor and customer win with the service model."

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/saas_view_from_/

Load more