13 August 2002

Return on connection: Ray Ozzie on Why collaboration tools? Ray on maximising "return on connection", something that the social network theorists would like: it has been my goal to explore what lies at the intersection between people, organizations, and technology. To attempt to utilize technology - to mold it, to shape it into a form such that it can help organizations to achieve a greater "return on connection" from employee, customer, and partner relationships, and to help individuals to strengthen the bonds between themselves and those with whom they interact - online. Because - empirically - collaborative technology has substantive value, in reducing the cost of coordination, in providing shared awareness across differences in space and time. And on not fighting human nature: But therein lies the rub: getting people to do it. We spent years and years at Lotus trying to convince people of the "higher order" value of collaborative processes, sharing, and KM. And I learned the hard way that fighting what appear to be natural organizational and social dynamics is very tough. Which is why eMail is the most popular collaboration tool on the planet: it works the way that people naturally want to work. And which is why Groove is built upon a client-side, personally empowering "email model" than an "app server" model. Mobile, instant, ad hoc, private. Effective collaboration tools strike a balance between personal need/behavior and collective/organizational need. 5:02:32 PM     comments

Six Sigma methodology optimises, doesn't help you innovate Whilst 6-S helped IBM optimise its processes for building networking equipt and hard drives, EMC was inventing RAID and Cisco routers. 8:50:24 AM     comments

Seven myths of knowledge management number 7, and the best: if you build it, they will use it 8:40:27 AM     comments