Ross Mayfield's Weblog

Lurching Legacy into 2.0

Arrived in Boston this morning for the Enterprise 2.0 software conference.  Caught the very end of Weinberger's presentation and McAfee's talk.  Maybe it was the red eye I took this morning, but I got fairly infuriated by the IBM presentation.  Michael Rhodin didn't show up, but the content was probably the same and how it started was enterprise marketing gone wild.

He described evolving IBM Websphere's evolutionary approach to becoming 2.0.  But what the heck does Ajax on the interface, "semantic tagging" and RSS feeds have to do with Social Software?  What the fuck does a lifestyle driven e-commerce implementation have to do with Social Software?  What does a Ajax interface on top of a content management system have to do with Social Software?

Then he described Info 2.0, an integrated suite that enables the creation of mashable content into easily customizable, instant dashboards.  Again, Ajax pixie dust.  But I'll get a demo.  He did describe QEDWiki, a great mashup platform and horrible collaboration wiki, but a genuine innovation within the space.  Can't wait until it is more than a research product.  Then he described Lotus Connections, a social software suite I would even recommend.  If you have 130k employees.  Ah, then they launched IBM Lotus Quickr, with content sharing, team blogs, wikis, team calendar and lists.  Again, I'll get a demo and at this point pardon the above sarcasm as I have an inherent bias.  But I'm wondering what my fellow enterprise irregulars think.

I might just excuse myself from all large vendor sessions at this conference.

Wisdom of Wikis

Julian distinguishes between Wisdom of Crowds and what you could call the Wisdom of Wikis:

I had the great privilege of hosting the London Wiki Wednesday last week (June 6) and in amongst the animated conversation I made the mistake of associating the Wisdom of Crowds with wikis. Andrew Hardie, a fellow attendee, set me straight by saying:

The basic tenets of the Wisdom of Crowds are:

• Diversity of opinion: Each person should have private information even if it’s just an eccentric interpretation of the known facts.
• Independence: People’s opinions aren’t determined by the opinions of those around them.
• Decentralization: People are able to specialize and draw on local knowledge.
• Aggregation: Some mechanism exists for turning private judgments into a collective decision.

The point being that with wikis participants are collaborating.  The intelligence that emerges is different from people providing opinions aside from each other.  I tried to illustrate this in the Power Law of Participation, as the difference between Collective Intelligence and Collaborative Intelligence:

I view Collaborative Intelligence, or the Wisdom of Wikis, as a higher order.  Similar to the difference between an opinion poll on if we should withdraw from Iraq and deliberative polling on the same question.  When people face each other with their opinions, in moderation, the result that emerges is more often than not different from the opinion they came with.  I first encountered deliberative polling via Joi:

Had dinner tonight with Lawrence Lessig to talk about emergent democracy and other things. Larry pointed out some interesting work called deliberative polling being done by Professor James S. Fishkin. Since polling forces people to vote on something they don't really know too much, the data may be statistically accurate, but is not necessarily the best way to promote a democratic system. Deliberative polling takes a diverse group of people, forces them to discuss the issues in small group, in large groups, small groups, over and over again for a fairly lengthy process until everyone has a pretty good idea of the issues and a balanced and educated position. Polls are conducted through the process to track how people's opinions change. Afterwards, many of the people who have participated become much more active citizens. I think that this is similar to the emergent democracy idea that we have. Maybe we can try to do this deliberative polling using the online tools that we have.

Right now we are fascinated by the Wisdom of Crowds that emerges from low threshold participation in Digg-like tools.  Maybe that's all we have time for.  But there is far more opportunity over the long term for new tools that serve the core of a social network, and scaled laboratories such as Wikipedia to explore the Wisdom of Wikis.  Wikis themselves, to answer a question from Julian, could use more threshold activities, such as Favoriting in Socialtext, but there is more we could do to turn weak signals into strong signposts.

Reboot9 Presentation

I'm told the video of the above presentation will be posted and I will share it here.

Internal Wikis Go Mainstream by 2010

Ferris Research, one of the first to cover enterprise wikis (Jeff Ubois wrote about them four years ago), has a new report that internal wikis will go mainstream by 2010.  Essentially, by then the knowledge base use case will be common and wikis will be the natural vehicle.

These "wikipedias-inside" will be used throughout the organization to document internal language, like commonly used code words or acronyms. They will also be used by smaller teams, such as:

• HR or finance, documenting corporate policies/procedures
• Sales and marketing, tracking competitive intelligence, market research, RFI/RFP responses, or information about key partners/suppliers/vendors
• Support staff accessing a knowledge base to diagnose and solve customer problems

When we started Socialtext, we had to spend a lot of time with each customer explaining what a wiki is and why it had such a funny four letter word.  Now it is far more common for people to come to us with a clear idea of a Wikipedia they want to build, and need help actually getting it done.  Sometimes we have to correct the perception problems of Wikipedia, such as vandalism risks and content quality, inherent when the reference model is public and open.  But the cultural revolution in the consumer space is a clear driver for enterprise wiki use.  That, and bottom up adoption of open source and SaaS that gives most users their first wiki experience within an organization.  Explaining wikis is less of a challenge, but was always a smaller issue than getting people to have that experience where they get it in their context.  Then it clicks.  And we just have to direct it towards the right value proposition.

The Best of John Horton

Sometimes the internal blogging gets going, sometimes it gets weird.  If you have a blog inside your company you might understand this, because in the comfort (or not) within a more private culture, different things percolate.  I first saw this at a customer, Ziff Davis, where they discovered an Art Director had the best writer's voice, and he went on the be the most popular blogger when they launched it on their public platform, 1UP.  Not every Horatio has a blog, but at Socialtext we have our own little story.

John Horton started with us as an intern and is our sales ops guy.  In fairness, there are better things about John Horton, but his blogging has gained a kind of cult following in the company.  He is our Kafka, the everyday Dilbert, a man who speaks the truth.

John Horton was was cool enough to let me post some excepts.  The meat of his posts are about our lead flow, and straight forward insights into how to improve the processes he is involved in, which I had to redact, but some what is sandwiched around it remains:

05/02/07
Not much to say really. I think I'm going to get Quiznos for lunch again.

05/03/07                          

Takeaways from the New Employee meeting: I thought it was a good, informative meeting that was probably helpful for everyone. The reasons for the blogging requirement were made clear. I knew nothing of how the weblog tool worked before the meeting, and now I do obviously. I'm honored that my initial attempt at a blog was made an example of. I've actually learned a lot over the past few days with my basic lessons in Wiki Gardening from Liz and then the meeting today. I'm improving in my wiki creating, editing, and navigating skills. I've also learned a lot simply by following examples from random wikis. It's pretty easy to pick up on the various formatting techniques by seeing how others do it...

In other news, today at Quiznos I had the new Peppercorn Parmesan Turkey sub. It was pretty good, but it seemed a little heavy on the Ranch dressing. While standing in line there, I've often wondered to myself, "If I was a sandwich, which sandwich would I be?" From my perspective, it's right up there with other profound questions such as "What's the meaning of life?" and "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?". I'm going to think about it a little more, and if I come up with an answer, I'll certainly blog it.

05/04/07                          

Quiznos Sub of the Day:

Classic Italian

Salami, pepperoni, capicola, ham, mozzarella, lettuce, tomato, red onion, black olives, Red Wine Vinaigrette Dressing

Learned a new Quiznos-related acronym from Liza today. MOP = mustard, onions, pickles.

Frustrated with IRC. Downloaded 3 different clients, but still no luck joining "#social". Not sure what the problem is. I feel like I'm pretty computer-literate, but IRC makes me feel like an idiot. Griffon doesn't seem to be in today, so I'll talk to him on Monday about it. Why is Skype so easy to setup, yet IRC so difficult? The Trillian client installed a Weather Channel program on my desktop. Great. That's just what I wanted.

05/09/07                          

Quiznos Sub of the Day:

Honey Bourbon Chicken
Chicken, lettuce, tomato, red onion, Honey Bourbon Mustard and Zesty Grille Sauce

Best attention-grabbing news headline I've seen in a while: Angry Giraffe Teaches Drunk Students a Lesson. In all seriousness though, there is something to be learned from this news story. Don't provoke giraffes while intoxicated. Truly an important life lesson.

05/11/07                          

Quiznos Sub of the Day:

Classic Club
Turkey, ham, bacon, cheddar, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise

...There was a fascinating and deeply philosophical conversation about tattoos in the office today between Jeff Harpell, Barb Hibino, and I. It was decided that if I were to get a tattoo, it would be a huge dead tree on my chest.

Super Weekend Plans: I'm probably going to sleep a lot. Maybe watch some TV. I was thinking of going to a store, but I'm not sure yet.

05/15/07                          

Quiznos Sub of the Day:

Oven-Roasted Turkey
Turkey breast, lettuce, tomato, mayo

...Doing some more gardening on the Exchange wiki this week with Liz. I like the diverse nature of my job. Lots of very different things to do. It's fun to occasionally go outside of the sales realm.

Most importantly, I've been delegated the supreme responsibility of ordering Round Table pizza for Friday's Bugfest. I feel honored that such faith has been placed in me to accomplish this. I just hope and pray I have the determination and fortitude to complete this most difficult task.

05/16/07                          

South American Dictator of the Day:
Augusto Pinoche

It seemed like a natural progression to go from Quiznos to South American dictators.

05/17/07                          

Central America Dictator of the Day:
Anastasio Somoza Debayle

The noise outside is making my brain bleed.

(Editor: I'm skipping ahead here, and you are missing the good parts about a company party and learning that God is editable)

05/24/07                          

Fundamental Physics Concept of the Day:
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle

There’s light in my cubicle now.

...My left foot would occasionally go numb the past couple days. I’m happy to report that it hasn’t happened so far today.

After careful consideration, I have decided to downgrade to Windows 3.1. I’ll also be using an old AOL embedded browser. I think this will increase my productivity and allow me to encounter far, far more bugs. I’m going to get Griffon to set me up with a 5.25-inch floppy drive. If anyone out there has an old monitor, I’ll need that also. I’m hoping for a CGA monitor, but I’ll take EGA too. Preferably with overheating problems.

05/30/07                          

Luxembourg Hill of the Day:
Kneiff

My Super Memorial Day Weekend: I went to Wyoming and sat on a bench for a while.

...There’s a big ugly fake plant in my living room. I’m not entirely sure how it got there, but it’s there. I hate it, but I don’t know how to get rid of it. I suppose I could set it on fire. My apartment manager has advised me against that course of action, but I’m still considering it. So, if anyone would like a big ugly fake plant, I’m more than willing to donate it. As long as it doesn’t require a whole lot of effort on my part.

So I noticed there was some controversy over Holly’s marketing e-mail about the internet poll. Some people thought it would be spam, some people thought it was lying to vote for Socialtext over other internet resources, and some people thought Luke’s mom was cool. Let me just say that I’m completely supportive of the poll, the e-mail, Luke’s mom, spam, and lying in general. So vote for Socialtext: http://www.webware.com/html/ww/100/2007/reference.html
And tell your friends that they’re lame if they don’t vote for Socialtext too.

05/31/07                          

Secretary of the Interior of the Day:
Orville Hickman Browning

Late last night I received a text message from an unknown number reading, "Hey Guapo! This is Samantha!". As far as I knew, I didn't know a Samantha nor have I ever been referred to as Guapo. Confused and perplexed, I sat thinking for a few hours about the deeper implications of this event. I did not know this person and did not recognize the number, yet she had clearly sent me a text message. Why? Was this sent by accident? Was this sent as a joke? Who is Samantha? Who is Guapo? Why had I been the recipient of this confounding message? After pondering these mysteries for quite some time as well as doing a little bit of soul-searching, I came to the conclusion that nothing happens at random in the universe. This message was clearly meant to come to me one way or another. Even though I had not known it before receiving the text message, I BECAME Guapo once I received the message. Reinvigorated with a new sense of purpose and a feeling of belonging in the universe, I shut off the phone and went to bed...

06/05/07                          

Chuck Norris Website of the Day:
http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/

Diet Mountain Dew is horrible. Worst soda ever...

Update on the Guapo crisis:
So I received a second text message addressed to "Guapo" from someone I don't know. This one reads, "Guapo, you there? trying to reach out to you man." I think the most likely scenario is that I'm a schizo with an alternate personality known as Guapo whose actions I have no memory of. He sounds like a more exciting person than me though, so perhaps I should just embrace the persona. If I continue to receive these messages, I shall certainly relay them to everyone at Socialtext since it's clearly an issue that is of high importance for every employee here.

(Editor: I'm going to stop there.  If you think John Horton should start a public blog, let us know.  Quiznos, you should work the sponsorship angle.  Potential employers, you will have to wait.  Ladies, I hear he is available.  And he is even nicer, productive and honest in real life.)

IDC Survey: 1/4 of Enterprises Use Wikis

Jeff Brainard posted a the results of an IDC survey along with a Q&A with collaboration analyst Mark Levitt on the Socialtext blog.

"IDC’s 1Q07 AppStats survey, nearly a quarter of the 258 U.S. respondents reported that wikis are already in use at their organizations."

This is the only research to date we have found on the current penetration of wikis into the enterprise.  Gartner predicts that 50% of companies will use wikis by 2009.  Perhaps we are halfway there.

IDEO KnowHow Talk

Last month I gave a talk at IDEO, the leading industrial design firm, as part of their monthly KnowHow series.  It's a one hour stream of consciousness for an audience of designers set in an L-shaped room that has me glancing left to right.  They were kind enough to let me redistribute it:

Flash
If you encounter any difficulty, please view it on Blip

Status Contests and Attention Aggregators

I find myself updating my status, or answering the question "what are you doing?" across Twitter, Jaiku, Plazes and Facebook.  This is made easier through clients like Twitterific, Juhu, Plazer and some Facebook hacks that are less attractive.  I'm using these clients for more than updating status easily, however.  They are a new kind of attention aggregator -- bringing the status or lifestreams of my social networks to me in real time.

They are pretty cool tools, if you haven't tried them.  For Twitter, having a client fits my laptop-oriented daily use, so I can mostly turn the mobile client off (text "off" to 40404, and "on" when you are roaming around) and subscribe to a larger social network.  For Jaiku, having a client brings continuous partial presence to my laptop, that is far richer because people are lifestreaming (adding feeds from other tools like blogs to enrich their presence).  For Plazes, the Plazer has always let me share my location, but now it is richer with status sharing and a reverse-chronological view of your network.  Facebook will surely have a better client soon as part of their quest to be the social operating system, and hopefully incorporate your Mini-feed.

But all this client development seems like one-offs, status service providers have stayed out of development perhaps wisely, and there is ample room for innovation.  As is usually the case, we've been here before -- a lack of standardization and cooperation yields less and leaves room for a large service provider to monopolize.

I don't think we want to wait for Google, Yahoo or Microsoft to provide a status and lifestream integrated user experience that flows through clients, let alone browsers or operating systems.  I do think this will happen as status services fill a valuable niche in our demand for social interaction, let alone being a new command line for web services.

Compare where we are to how RSS and Atom provided common standards for developers to innovate.  There was a time where almost every graduate CS student would write a news aggregator for fun and new startups proliferated.  Adriaan Tijsseling leveraged Atom from the earliest versions to create client blog editor, Ecto, and went beyond the Flickr Uploader to also offer aggregation with 1001.  Some, like Newsgator, plunged deep into clients across operating systems, email clients and mobile clients to let you work across them.  But the result isn't the case where one vendor, could own publishing, syndication and reading including clients.  We have a healthy marketecture that continues to innovate.

There is a new kind of aggregator, for more real time attention, that needs to be build to work across status services.  I'm not sure if it will be built into existing news aggregators, if existing status clients will evolve into them, or it will be something new.  I just know it is coming.  It will leverage status service providers and Lifestreaming you find in services like Dandelife and Jaiku.  You will be able to edit your status and perhaps more, like location to Plazes or a blog entry.  Maybe it will be built on Apollo or Google Gears, maybe a Firefox extension or a mobile version on WidSets.  But it won't happen too soon.

The problem is, while the REST APIs are easy to work with, they aren't standardizing.  Maybe they will converge on using the Atom Publishing Protocol.  Maybe they can work out a way to let you write your status once, publish everywhere, and remove dupes when aggregating.

Common Public Attribution License (CPAL)

Yesterday we withdrew both the Socialtext Public License (STPL) and the Generic Attribution Provision (GAP) from consideration by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). We remain committed to following the process by either getting a MPL + Attribution license approved by OSI (variants of which are in use by over 20 commercial open source application companies), or choosing another OSI approved license. Until this process is complete, we will not use the OSI Certified mark, but we will refer to our products as open source as the STPL is consistent with OSD. Our position is unique in taking the risk to follow the licensing process, but the right risk is always worth taking.

We have been working on a new license, the Common Public Attribution License (CPAL), based on feedback from OSI-discuss. It will, among other things:

• Be based on MPL
• Be anonymized (removing Socialtext from the name of the license, encouraging further adoption)
• Be templatized (making it easier to adopt)
• Use the External Deployment clause from OSL, with permission from Larry Rosen
• Have an attribution clause that only requires equal treatment

In doing so, we are trying to go beyond simply meeting the Open Source Definition (specifically OSD #10), but also trying to be a model for how open source licensing should be performed. This involves a lot of detailed work, within the license and explaining it. We will apply it to our products and submit it to OSI, but in trying to make it useful for other projects and products we have to work through scenarios beyond Socialtext use so this will take time. We should share this soon, but wanted to note why we are extending an already lengthy timeline on our own.

Beautiful Game Turned Ugly

The greatest test of a civilization is it's ability to keep one idiot from changing history.  Unfortunately, that happened last night in Denmark.  The soccer world cup qualifier match between Sweden and Denmark, who haven't met in international play in 30 years, was called off when a Danish fan bumb-rushed the ref.  Denmark has just come back from being down 3-0 to tie, there was a player scuffle and the German ref called a penalty shot for Sweden.  While this seems not to be the biggest deal, one game with one idiot will shape the way two neighbor countries think of each other.  Or, at least, give them something to talk about.

Anywho, thanks Thomas for hosting a post-Reboot match party.  I'll have more on Reboot after reflection.