Tools

  • Adobe Acrobat Connect for Collaboration

    I’ve been collaborating with a colleague in Minneapolis on new materials for The Culture of Collaboration™ Workshop. To bridge the distance gap, we’ve been using collaborative tools. One of those tools is Adobe Acrobat Connect, a subscription-based, hosted web conferencing service. Acrobat Connect is the latest incarnation of the Macromedia Breeze product, which Adobe rebranded after acquiring Macromedia in 2005. Acrobat Connect uses Adobe Flash Player, installed on roughly 97% of web browsers.

    The beauty of Acrobat Connect is its simplicity. The application launches with a single click from Microsoft Office or Adobe programs. Then you’re prompted to either share your screen immediately or send an email invitation to participants. The invitation includes a URL and an audio conference number with session code.

    Web conferencing is becoming more collaborative. The tool has traditionally been used for one-to-many or few-to-many presentations and training. By collaborative, I mean everybody can participate by simultaneously working on a document, spreadsheet or other program instead of one person clicking through slides while other people watch. True collaboration through web conferencing levels hierarchy by making all participants equal contributors, regardless of titles.

    In Acrobat Connect, the host can decide whether to share control of the session and let others annotate material. Sharing control is often a good idea, as noted above. For more on why, check out the 10 Cultural Elements of Collaboration in The Culture of Collaboration book.

    While Acrobat Connect includes a shared whiteboard with annotation tools, my colleague and I have been using the highlighters and other mark-up tools in Microsoft Word as we collaborate on The Culture of Collaboration™ Workshop materials. Incidentally, if you have a webcam and want to add videoconferencing to Acrobat Connect, that’s a single click.

    One thing to watch for…Adobe has made two recent acquisitions that should ultimately enable Acrobat Connect and other Adobe programs with IM and presence (for more on presence, see my March 7, 2007 post). In January, Adobe acquired Antepo, an enterprise IM company and Amicima, a peer-to-peer networking company.

    Categories: ,

  • Venture Capital and Global Collaboration

    Global collaboration is becoming a hot topic for venture capitalists whose US-based portfolio companies are expanding into China, India and other regions. I’m attending a gathering of venture capitalists this week, and the kick-off session was about how to expand winning companies globally.

    One VC panelist commented that the biggest problem for portfolio companies expanding globally is time zones. He explained that the COO may be in Japan, the CEO in California and the CTO and engineering team in Israel. “It’s so difficult to keep the communication flow among the management team,” he noted. The moderator asked the VC if there were any special tools that help. His response was “getting up early and going to bed late.” Another VC insisted that a range of tools including videoconferencing could close the distance gap for his portfolio companies.

    Paradoxically, distance can create value. In The Culture of Collaboration book, I describe how collaborative companies like Boeing, Toyota and BMW leverage time zones, collaborative culture and tools to compress product cycle time. Clearly, chopping many months off a car or airplane development program creates substantial value. In the book, I also discuss Boeing’s use of mirror zones (see my March 16 post).

    Even early stage, venture-backed companies can turn time zone differences into assets. The key is for entrepreneurs (with guidance from VC’s) to integrate global collaboration into business models. Start-ups have an advantage over many later-stage enterprises, because they can bake collaborative culture into the company’s DNA right from the start.        

    Categories: , , ,

  • Microsoft Upgrades Web Conferencing

    Web conferencing is becoming richer and more collaborative. Traditionally, the tool has been used for scheduled one-to-many events more than for spontaneous collaborative sessions. With the advent of presence (see my March 7 post), however, collaborators can easily escalate interaction from instant messaging to a web conference or videoconference.

    Microsoft revealed this morning at its TechEd conference in Orlando some features of the new version of its Live Meeting web conferencing service available in the fall. The same functionality will also become available in Microsoft’s upcoming release of its Office Communications Server 2007 product, now in public beta. The idea is to make on-the-fly collaborative sessions and scheduled meetings more like face-to-face encounters. The service is geared towards five kinds of web conferences:

    1) Spontaneous collaborative sessions

    2) Scheduled collaborative meetings

    3) Scheduled presentations

    4) Large public events

    5) Training.

    Live Meeting will support videoconferencing through webcams and RoundTable, a 360-degree panoramic video camera developed by Microsoft Research.  The new release has an active speaker function that switches the web cam video from one speaker to another. The new version of Live Meeting works with traditional phones and voice over IP and also integrates rich media such as Windows Media and Adobe Flash.

    What will ultimately transform collaborative sessions and meetings at a distance are searching and sifting functions, and Microsoft Research has done significant work in this area. The idea is that if you miss a meeting, you can quickly find relevant sections on demand. This release of Live Meeting includes the ability to record and search the audio and video based on the active speaker, the slide number and the elapsed time. But this is only the beginning.

    Soon intelligent meeting systems will let us search based on audio key words and video events such as people entering and leaving the meeting. This functionality exploits 360-degree cameras like RoundTable. Roundtable_2Ross Cutler and his colleagues at Microsoft Research developed RoundTable’s prototype and have written about distributed meeting systems. You can check out their work here and get an idea of the functionality on the horizon.

    Microsoft Office RoundTable (image courtesy of Microsoft)

    Categories:

  • Intuit and Collaboration

    Intuit, like many software vendors, has its sites on collaboration. Recently, I had an interesting conversation with Bill Lucchini and Peter Fearey of Intuit’s QuickBase business unit. Bill, the vice president and general manager of QuickBase, is a thirteen-year Intuit veteran. Peter, who handles product management, used to work at Apple.

    QuickBase is quietly making inroads into enterprises with a suite of online productivity applications. Reportedly, 45 of Fortune 100 companies use QuickBase. In true Web 2.0 fashion, all users need is a browser. So these applications typically run under the radar of the IT department. It’s easy to input an Excel spreadsheet into QuickBase. Multiple users can then update the spreadsheet, and they can set email alerts so that each collaborator knows when a colleague has made changes. Users can also customize their own QuickBase applications for managing everything from the office coffee fund to inventory. 

    Not surprisingly, Procter & Gamble is using QuickBase. P&G, which I wrote about in The Culture of Collaboration book, is a collaborative company that is open to exploring how new tools can create value.

    While the QuickBase approach to collaboration has been asynchronous to date, the team is considering adding such real-time capabilities as instant messaging and web conferencing. So if a user is working in a QuickBase application, he or she could spontaneously invite a colleague to join. Such a move could make Intuit a more formidable force in collaboration.

    Categories: ,

  • Collaboration on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner

    I’m glad to see that Design News published an article in its May 15 issue about how global collaboration is making a difference for Boeing on the 787 Dreamliner project. You can read the article here. The article even includes a photo taken for The Culture of Collaboration book of Boeing’s Global Collaboration Center in Everett, Washington.

    The Design News article provides useful insight into how Boeing uses Dassault Systemes’ product lifecycle management tools including Catia, version 5. In the book, I describe the interplay of tools, environment, and culture in Boeing’s global collaborative enterprise (GCE) and delineate three levels of collaboration at Boeing. The book also explains how Boeing maximizes mirror zones (see my March 16 post).

    Incidentally, the book defines the global collaborative enterprise (GCE) as a collection of interdependent companies that engage in shared creation of value, often in real time. Boeing is an excellent example of a GCE in that Boeing and its global partners work together seamlessly as if there were no geographical boundaries. But there’s an automobile company that is also setting the standard for GCE’s. Can you guess which company?

    Categories: , ,

  • Collaboration and Unified Communications

    Microsoft invited me to San Francisco’s Le Meridien Hotel last Thursday for an excellent salad nicoise and a preview of new “unified communications” devices. Microsoft and nine partners are officially introducing those devices this morning at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Los Angeles. The devices are presence-enabled, which means they integrate well with instant messaging buddy or colleague lists and corporate directories.

    Chris Cullin, director of product management for Microsoft’s unified communications group, and his colleagues transformed a conference room into three separate work environments for the information worker, the executive, and the mobile professional. The environments included PCs running Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 and presence-enabled devices including IP phones, Bluetooth headsets and monitors optimized for videoconferencing.

    Using the tools with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, it’s easy to see which colleagues are available and connect with them on the fly. By clicking an icon, I could escalate an instant messaging session into a voice or video call.

    Not surprisingly, the executive work environment offered the most compelling devices including Polycom’s CX700 IP Phone.

    Polycomcx700phone_2 

    The phone has an integrated finger print reader, embedded Office Communicator 2007 and many bells and whistles including full duplex speakerphone capability. As soon as the user touches the finger print reader, his or her presence status switches to available and colleagues know that he or she is ready to communicate and collaborate on the fly.

    Collaboration requires the right culture, tools and environment. Microsoft, Polycom and other partners have successfully tackled the tools part of the equation and will help countless enterprises take communication and real-time collaboration to a new level. For enterprises to create value through collaboration, however, they must do more than adopt tools. The real challenge, as I point out in my book, is to foster collaborative culture.

    Categories:

  • Pinger for Collaboration?

    It seems like everybody is talking about collaboration, especially at technology conferences. At the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco on April 17, Google CEO Eric Schmidt proclaimed that “collaboration is the killer app for the way communities work.” 

    I spent two days last week at the Dow Jones VentureWire Wireless Innovations conference in Redwood Shores, California. The conference format is that startup CEO’s present to venture capitalists in breakout sessions of 25 minutes or less. During presentations and spontaneous corridor conversations, the word collaboration came up repeatedly.

    One startup presenting at the conference is Pinger, which is optimized for asynchronous mobile-to-mobile communication and perhaps collaboration. In The Culture of Collaboration book, I define crossover tools as communication tools that can be used to foster a Culture of Collaboration. Pinger fits this description and delivers a new type of voice messaging. The company is funded by Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers. Described as “text messaging for your voice,” Pinger lets users send a voice message by dialing a special number, saying the recipient’s name, and recording a message. Hang up, and the message is sent. Recipients get notification of the Pinger via text message. To hear the message, the recipient can use the phone’s auto-dial function. To reply, just hit “1.” Pinger’s web interface allows management of inbox and contacts.

    The service is particularly handy for driving. Unlike text messaging, Pinger conveys voice tone and therefore provides more insight into intent and mood. Also, Pinger is easier than using a tiny QWERTY keyboard especially when driving! And it may even be a cure for Blackberry thumb! So why not leave voice mail instead of sending a Pinger? Voice mail often involves time-consuming, complex voice prompts. Also, you may be interrupting the recipient who may answer the phone.

    Pinger turns voice messaging into an efficient communication medium. How we use the medium determines whether we’re truly collaborating. Sending a Pinger with orders for a subordinate subverts collaborative culture, but sending a Pinger with a brainstorm relating to an ongoing project enhances the Culture of Collaboration.

    Categories: ,

  • Collaboration, Mergers and Acquisitions

    The acid test for collaboration is mergers and acquisitions. Getting two organizations with different cultures to work well together while tying the knot presents significant challenges. The key is to instill collaborative culture. As I noted in my April 12 post, which you can view here, the lack of collaboration has likely derailed such mergers as Daimler-Benz and Chrysler.

    The lead story in today’s Wall Street Journal by Ellen Byron tackles Procter & Gamble’s $57 billion acquisition of Gillette, which I cover in The Culture of Collaboration book. The gist of the story, which requires registration to view here, is that combining the oral care units of P&G and Gillette involved particular complexity. Gillette’s Oral-B unit preferred meetings, while P&G’s Crest team liked memos. While P&G/Crest deliberated more, Gillette/Oral-B made relatively quick decisions.

    Both meetings and memos have limitations in merging two geographically-dispersed organizations. Meetings require scheduling and travel. Memos are one-way, asynchronous and anti-collaborative. The most effective tools for integrating two companies are often real-time tools including instant messaging, web conferencing and videoconferencing. Presence brings these tools to life by showing which colleagues are available and by enabling instant connections through text, voice and video.

    Ironically, I describe in the book how P&G and Gillette used presence-enabled tools extensively while managing the merger. The desire for spontaneous decision-making and problem-resolution drove the use of the tools. However, the tools took hold because P&G extended its highly-collaborative culture to the Gillette team, which was generally receptive. Judging from the Wall Street Journal story, there may have been pockets of anti-collaborative behavior during and after the merger. However, the broader story, which The Wall Street Journal article did not address, is that the P&G and Gillette merger is succeeding because of collaboration.

    Categories: , ,

  • Instant Messaging Changing Workplace Dynamics

    Behavior once considered a faux pas at best and professional suicide at worst is now considered collaborative. As business adopts instant messaging and other forms of real-time, spontaneous collaboration, workplace dynamics are changing. In forward-thinking organizations, instant messaging or even a spontaneous video chat with your boss’s boss or somebody several levels down the organization chart is becoming acceptable.

    By 2010, 90% of people with business email accounts will have IT-controlled IM accounts, according to Gartner. Also, Gartner reports that the enterprise IM market is growing at 20% per year through 2009. IM is more effective than email in making remote workers feel more connected. Remote workers include telecommuters, road warriors, and people working from small branch offices and outsourced workspace. By 2010, more than 40 million people in the United States will work remotely or from home, according to JALA International, which analyzes data on telecommuting. Currently, almost a third of managers work at home at least part of the time, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    To feel more connected, geographically-dispersed team members are choosing real-time, spontaneous tools like IM. Secure, corporate-sanctioned IM is beginning to eclipse email in many workplaces. With IM at their fingertips, people are checking whether colleagues at all levels of the organization are available. New capabilities allow real time on the fly connections with a single click from a spreadsheet, document or database (see my March 7 post). Rather than wait for a scheduled call or meeting, people are instead collaborating spontaneously.

    Real-time collaboration is wreaking havoc on hierarchy and is challenging the status quo. Therefore, as I point out in The Culture of Collaboration book, organizational culture must catch up with new ways of working. However, tools extend and enhance—rather than create—culture.

    Let me know how IM is impacting workplace dynamics within your organization. Feel free to post a comment or send me email at evan@thecultureofcollaboration.com

    Categories: , ,

  • Collaboration Issues at DaimlerChrysler?

    When mergers sour, many factors play a role. In The Culture of Collaboration book, I describe how anticipating, acknowledging and addressing cultural differences are key success factors in mergers. I also discuss how collaboration can bridge cultures, break down barriers and reduce the impact of silos. Against this backdrop, the book covers what went right with Procter & Gamble and Gillette and what went wrong with AOL and Time Warner.

    Now DaimlerChrysler seeks a buyer for Chrysler, and the bids are a fraction of the $36 billion Daimler-Benz paid for Chrysler nine years ago. This merger was clearly a disaster. What went wrong? Tuesday National Public Radio broadcast an excellent story by Frank Langfitt on its flagship newscast, All Things Considered. You can listen to the story here.

    In a nutshell, Langfitt reports that the companies had almost nothing in common. Barriers included language and culture. Daimler was a German company known for luxury brands and Chrysler was a scrappy, price-conscious Detroit carmaker that nearly went bankrupt in the 1980’s. Mercedes engineers had limited interest in the cost-per-unit of components and resisted sharing parts for use in Chrysler-branded vehicles for fear of diluting brand value. In contrast, Ford Motor Company—as I describe in the book—shares parts across Volvo, Ford Europe and Mazda.

    DaimlerChrysler uses collaborative tools, both real-time and asynchronous. The company has standardized on the IBM Lotus suite including Sametime instant messaging. Nevertheless, collaboration has been inadequate to break down barriers and ensure a successful merger. Why? It takes more than collaborative tools to collaborate! As I point out in the book, tools extend and enhance—rather than create—collaborative culture.

    Categories: , , ,

ABOUT

Email Me

CATEGORIES