Google Docs Improves Collaboration with Comment-Only Permissions

Google Docs has announced a new sharing option to give people comment-only access to documents. Previously, the only options were "Can view" or "Can edit."

With the "Can comment" option, document authors can now allow others to enter feedback on a document without being able to change the document itself.

Here's how I plan to use that feature. I have found, working with too little time and too much content change, that I need a simple "wiki" style web link where anybody can access the latest version of a speaker program, which is something I seem to find myself doing more of.

Up to this point, I have made a document, essentially a program with speakers and topics, available for viewing only, so people always will know how a program line-up has changed, without having to send out all sorts of notifications to everybody who might need to know about the changes.

But that format also does not allow for me to conveniently view, and let others view, helpful suggestions about timing, format, subjects and others who should be invited to speak. With the new feature, I can capture all of that in one place, and propagate the suggestions or comments, in a convenient way. It's very helpful.

Google Docs Improves Collaboration with Comment-Only Permissions

Social Networking Changing Collaboration at Work

Social networking is starting to change the nature of worker collaboration within companies, new poll conducted by Harris Research suggests. Of workers who use social networking at work, 59 percent say that their usage of social networking has increased over the past year. But only about 17 percent of the 1,000 workers surveyed report using social networking.

The study found the most frequently used application for collaborating with others is email (91 percent), but that what people want from their email is changing. In addition to email, the Harris poll found that other applications being used by respondents to collaborate with others in the workplace include shared spaces (66 percent), voice calls and teleconferencing (66 percent), web conferencing (55 percent), video conferencing (35 percent), instant messaging (34 percent), and social networking (17 percent).

Respondents like the fact that email provides an easily-accessible record of communication and the ability to communicate with many people at once. Users also rank email prominently among various collaboration tools because there is a high level of comfort in using the application to easily communicate with others inside and outside their organizations. However, the poll showed there are many pain points associated with the way most email solutions function today.

While email remains the preferred method of collaboration, many respondents complained they receive too much irrelevant email (40 percent) and that they lack the ability to collaborate in real time (32 percent). End users also dislike the fact that they have very limited storage (25 percent) and that large volumes of email come into their inbox with no organizational structure (21 percent).

Half of those using social networking for work by-pass company restrictions to do so. The study participants who prefer to use social networks indicated they would like to have control over who sees their content as well as be able to share with groups of users using different tools. The respondents also indicated the desire to collaborate in real time without having to open up an additional application.

Collaboration is More than "Communications"

Collaboration is much more than communications, as Dave Michels points out. That is an area of fuzziness when we now speak of "unified communications and collaboration."

Communications is supposed to aid and foster collaboration. "Unified" approaches are supposed to help.  Sometimes they do. But not always.

Some of us are unfortunately old enough to remember when new investments in local area networks and related technology were supposed to improve productivity. Then we went for a decade without seeing measurable productivity gains people could agree on.

Then we had a decade when those investments finally seemed to pay off. The point here is that productivity gains sometimes require retraining people, so processes can be redesigned. And that can take a while. More than just a couple of years, as it turns out.

That does not mean IP communications will fail to deliver meaningful productivity gains. It does mean we often overestimate what is possible in the near term. But we also tend to underestimate what is possible longer term.

Somebody recently reminded me that some of us can remember a world before "Carterfone." Others just "heard about it." Of course, the Carterfone decision happened about 42 years ago. The issue then was simply the legal right to attach a modem to the public switched telephone network.

Where we are today began with Carterfone, but has far outstripped what anybody might have believed was possible. One suspects the world will be affected far beyond what anybody now can imagine in another 40 years.

We are likely then to face incredulous looks when people are told how work and play was mediated by networks in 2010. "That's all you could do?" is likely to be their response. Of course, in 2050 we will be about as far from Carterfone as Carterfone was from the invention of the telephone.

We will get further than any of us can now imagine. But we can go a decade or so before any important innovation has time to really change the way people live and work.

And some innovations just never have too much long-lasting impact. ISDN, ATM, and OSI come to mind. Don't worry, in some ways they are just like Carterfone: steps on a long journey.

"File Sharing" While in Conference Seen as Most Important "Collaboration" Feature

In-Stat says SIP trunking, wireless and cloud-based computing are key changes in the unified communications business.  But notice that respondents to a recent In-Stat survey say "collaboration" means "file sharing," not necessarily visual communications, telepresence or videoconferencing, as some might mean in the phrase "unified communications and collaboration."

File sharing while in conference is seen as the application of most importance, not necessarily "seeing" other participants.

Survey Finds Shockingly Low UC Adoption

Maybe it's just me, but after decades of the industry talking about, and delivering, unified messaging features, and after more than a decade of pushing other features such as unified directories, find me-follow me and other "unified" communications features, it still does not appear that all that many organizations really are using them.

Or so it would appear after a survey of 544 information technology professionals in the United States and United Kingdom by Freeform Dynamics.

The study suggests there currently is what some of us might call "shockingly low" adoption of unified communications. You might have thought otherwise, given the shift to new terminology such as "unified communications and collaboration." That might suggest saturation of UC, and a need for UCC.

The Freeform Dynamics might indicate something else: perhaps customers are not so enamored of the UC solutions they have been offered. Suppliers can react in a couple of ways. Maybe customers and prospects simply do not understand the value, in which case marketing and education should do the trick.

The other tack is to humbly acknowledge that the solutions we have been offering do not add enough value, do not offer additional value at the right price points, or that there are unarticulated problems we have not addressed.

The Freedorm Dynamics study might suggest that the industry has not yet found the "killer app" that makes UCC or UC intuitively valuable to most prospects and buyers.

Where is Unified Communications Going?

It looks like we are in the midst of yet another acronym cycle in the unified communications business. Nobody really likes "VoIP" or "IP communications." UC had been the preferred term until a year or two ago. "Collaboration" is the term some prefer. But there are other candidates.

Some people use the term "UC4" to describe where the next wave might be building for "unified communications, collaboration and contact center." And that wave is supposed to feature tighter communications integration with key enterprise software and job functions, as well as more use of video communications and mobile devices.

To be fair, people don't agree on what "collaboration," "unified communications" or "communications-enabled business processes" actually mean. All of those phrases include elements of VoIP, audio and video conferencing, presence, instant messaging, email, voice mail, mobility, business phone functions, unified messaging and the ability to initiate and receive voice and other communications from inside a consumer or business application.

As a general rule, when something doesn't sell well, it gets rebranded. Other times, marketing staffs want to refresh an existing product, or create a different spin, to play to a particular provider's strengths. Sometimes the buyer value proposition changes, so marketing pitches are adjusted to match the new end user priorities. Perhaps some of all those drivers now are at work.

What Will Enterprises Buy in 2010?

It always is dangerous to make predications about what enterprises will do when extrapolating from what they did last year, and what executives say they will do in the coming year, and doubling difficult at transition points, which is where enterprise IT managers likely will find themselves in early 2010.

As IT spending clearly was under pressure in 2009,. the issue is how much growth will happen in 2010 as postponed projects must be started, and how much top-line revenue growth enterprises actually can eke out, since it is hard to see a sustained increase in IT spending without top-line revenue growth. Up to this point in 2009, profitability increases at most enterprises have come because of cost cutting, not revenue growth, and that cannot continue indefinitely.

Investments for cost cutting for that reason appear to have been a big priority for enterprises in 2009. About 24 percent of those polled say cutting telecom and network costs were a critical priority, and 48 percent say  it was a high priority.

But some underlying trends likely will re-emerge in 2010. Data center consolidation has been a high priority for cost and disaster recovery reasons, with 24 percent of respondents. saying that is a “critical” priority and 43 percent saying it is a “high” priority.

About 40 percent of enterprise executives say mobility, collaboration and voice over IP continue to be high or critical priorities.

Desktop IP telephony migration continues, while other VoIP technologies of high interest also will get attention. Some 34 percent of enterprises say they already have implemented or are implementing desktop VoIP, and an additional 14 percent are expanding or upgrading their VoIP environment.

IP conferencing, including Web, video, and audio, while not yet implemented widely, have high interest as well. 

Cost savings, faster communication, and decision speed are values that drive UC adoption, says Ellen Daley, Forrester Research analyst. UC adoption continues to see traction, as well. About 21 percent of firms report that they are already, or are currently implementing, a UC solution, while nine percent are expanding or upgrading their current UC solution.

About 15 percent say they are piloting one. An additional 39 percent of firms are interested in or are considering UC solutions.

The top motivation for adopting UC is cost savings, followed by increasing communication between users. It appears enterprise executives are more comfortable with UC as well.

Some 51 percent of executives say they understand how UC will affect the way their companies do business. Still, about 32 percent of respondents say they still have some questions about UC value.

Integrated voice, email, and instant messaging top the list of the most desired features for UC.

Web conferencing and audio- and videoconferencing capability come in second while presence, allowing others to see coworkers’ status, comes in third.

Almost half of enterprises buy managed services, and though cost savings are a factor, freeing up time to focus on core business issues has grown as a driver of perceived value.

About 62 percent of respondents say that they have already purchased or are interested in purchasing managed or outsourced telecommunication services.

Unlike in past years, the top reason isn’t cost savings, although it is still high on the list. Instead, firms are opting for managed services to enable them to focus on their core business competencies.  

Telecom and network buyers are also interested in managed services beyond physical networks and telecom services like multiprotocol label switching. Web conferencing and or collaboration are the most popular managed services among respondents.

About 52 percent of those polled say they are very or somewhat interested in the technology.

Firms also are interested in network-based security services (46 percent), storage and backup services (44 percent) and data center services (43 percent).

About 51 percent are using IP technologies for contact centers. About eight percent are piloting IP contact center implementations, 31 percent are implementing now and

12 percent say they are upgrading or expanding their existing IP contact center capabilities.

So far, though, enterprise executives have lukewarm interest in hosted contact center solutions, Daley says.

Close to half of firms (49 percent) expect their overall number of contact center seats to remain about the same over the next year, with similar portions either increasing (23 percent) or decreasing (24 percent) seats.

Outsourcing of contact center seats is a different matter, though, says Daley. About 30 percent of firms report planning to outsource more of their contact center seats, while 51 percent of firms anticipate no change.

Both MPLS and Ethernet wide area networks are popular. About 36 percent of those polled say they already have completed their firm’s migration to MPLS. Ethernet adoption is which is growing fast as well, but has not yet reached use of MPLS, Daley says.

Managed MPLS is also popular, with 30 percent of firms already using it, and 22 percent of firms using managed Ethernet service.

Cost is the most important criterion when choosing landline data service providers, respondents say. About 60 percent of buyers say that is a very important consideration.

Service level agreements are important to 49 percent of respondents. Vendor pricing models, especially clarity on service elements and options, are very important to 43 percent of buyers.

Nearly 65 percent of respondents say they have, or are implementing, wireless local area

networks. And while SMB respondents generally are not that interested in public data networking, enterprise executives are much more interested both in fixed WiMAX (23 percent) and mobile WiMAX (25 percent) of respondents.

The majority of respondents have deployed wireless email or BlackBerry applications. Customer-facing applications dominate, though there is interest in line-of-business apps as well, though little buying as of yet, says Daley.

The majority of enterprises buy vendors’ mobile versions of existing packaged applications (41 percent), but a large portion also are developed in-house (35 percent) or are custom-built by third parties (33 percent).

Cost is the most important criterion (68 percent) for choosing a mobile network service provider, followed by domestic coverage (56 percent).

Email Remains Enterprise Collaboration Killer App

Email remains the enterprise collaboration "killer app," according to a new Forrester Research survey of some 2,000 enterprises (click image for larger view).

And despite the hype, most "Web 2.0" applications are not widely adopted, the survey finds. In fact, email, word processing, Web browsers and spreadsheets are the top four applications used by information workers, the survey finds.

But even among those apps, the level of involvement or expertise varies widely. While 60 percent of employees use word processing daily, only 42 percent actually
create documents.

Most other applications are used by only a minority of information workers.

One clear area of demand, though, is smartphones. The survey suggests that only about 11 percent of information workers actually use smartphones now, but 33 percent of respndents say they use a personal mobile phone for work purposes.

About 21 percent of respondents would like to get email outside of work, and 15 percent would like email on a smartphone.

· Collaboration tools are "stalled out", says Ted Schadler, Forrester Research analyst. Collaboration tools are important for people on a team, particularly if that team is distributed across many locations, he says. But the tools are not widely adopted.

Only 25 percent of enterprise information workers uses Web conferencing and
one in five uses team sites.

That leaves email with 87 percent adoption as the default collaboration tool for most people.

Forrester surveyed 2,001 U.S. information workers as part of the study, focusing on
employees of organizations with 100 or more employees. About 44 percent of respondents indicated they work at organizations of 5,000 or more employees.

Still, it’s really location flexibility that matters most to employee productivity, and laptop users at
companies with wireless access and secure network access benefit from that.

Telework is on the rise, poised to grow to 63 million U.S. information workers by 2016, says Schadler.

Trade Show Blues

As somebody who spends lots of time at industry trade shows, I'd have to say the temporary economy-induced decline in attendance at virtually all major industry meetings is not the biggest problem. There's less real news or value at these venues than there used to be, in part because information moves with the speed of Twitter and the Web.

That doesn't mean these venues are not important for some attendees. They're still valuable for sales people meeting with prospects in suites, away from the sessions and exhibits. But trade shows now seem to be less mission critical for lots of participants in the ecosystem, if only because the industry is developing other ways of replicating the marketplace functions trade shows and industry media once were a larger part of.

Webinars, podcasts, Web conferences, user group meetings, channel partners, Google and Twitter, Real Simple Syndication, blogs, wikis, even email and YouTube, are rival conversation channels.

Attendance likely will pick up again once the recession is over. But I have greater doubts that the value and effectiveness of the bigger industry meetings will improve.

That doesn't mean all "live meetings" are in this bucket. The more-specialized meetings provide more value, at least from my perspective. A few new or emerging venues have "buzz." EComm stands out in that regard.

But it is the "user group" venues that have, over the last couple of years, started to assume more importance, at least from my perspective. The Voice Peering Forum and MetaSwitch Forum, for example, have been quite useful.

So I've been spending much more time at user group meetings. That's where service and application providers are most concentrated and most easy to engage in conversation. That, after all, is why many of us attend such meetings.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/162551/top_10_signs_of_the_economic_slump_at_ctia.html?tk=rss_main

SME Conferencing Up 50% Next 12 Months

More than 50 percent of European small and mid-sized businesses plan to increase use of conference-calling and video-conferencing technologies over the next 12 months, a survey conducted by Skype reveals.

That finding corroborates with other data suggesting that Web-based collaboration, for example, is growing much faster than air travel, and replacement of such travel costs is a generally accepted value conferencing services provide.

A third of companies surveyed already use conference calls while a further 40 percent see the potential. Two thirds of companies already using conference calling do so at least once a week and 60 percent predict that they are likely to increase use over the next 12 months.

There is a similar pattern to video-conferencing use. Despite being a relatively new feature, more than 40 percent can see the potential of video-conferencing use in business. Skype’s internal data also suggest that 30 percent of all Skype calls now involve video.

There is also strong evidence to suggest that small businesses are embracing conference calling and video conferencing as a method of communicating both internally and with their customers and new prospects, Skype says.

In fact, many of the SMEs questioned who were not current users of video conferencing said they would be more likely to use it if it was better quality and not expensive.

Free BlackBerry Collaboration Tool for Small Groups

Telefónica and Research In Motion are introducing BlackBerry Unite!, a free PC-based software offering that will allow small groups, such as a family or small office, to stay connected and enhance communications and coordination. It's a combination of collaboration and remote PC access tools.

In addition to providing wireless email and web browsing, BlackBerry Unite! software will provide groups of up to five users with mobile access to shared calendars, pictures, music, documents and other desktop content.

The software provides five supported email accounts per user, with shared contact lists and Web browsing. Members of each user group can check each others’ availability, set up or modify appointments and send reminders.

Users can remotely download pictures, music, documents and other content on their desktop PC directly from their BlackBerry. Users also can share photos and files with other group members directly from their BlackBerries.

Users can remotely erase information on a lost or stolen handset as well. Contacts, pictures and other data on the BlackBerry can be backed up automatically over the air (via a cellular or Wi-Fi® network) to the desktop PC as well.

The BlackBerry Unite! software will be provided as a free download and, with the help of an easy-to-follow setup wizard, can be installed in minutes on a desktop PC, RIM says.

It's very cool. Not every company, and certainly not consumers, can afford to buy, set up and maintain their own BlackBerry enterprise servers. One can only hope the software will be made widely available in North America as well.

Microsoft OCS: Here Comes Presence

Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 has recently been released to manufacturing, so expect to hear a lot of noise from Microsoft about presence and voice, as Microsoft will be nudging and cajoling third-party software vendors to integrate presence into their applications. Microsoft also will be rearranging market share in the fragmented space as well (Cisco, Jabber and all the traditional business phone system vendors will be playing, as well as Oracle, for example)

And, oh by the way, the effort shows just how real is the danger of communications service providers becoming "dumb pipe" providers.

Consider a typical customer relationship management (CRM) application. A salesperson might be looking at a customer record, and see a list of all email communications that others on a sales team have had with a given customer. There's a problem noted, and the sales rep wants to make sure it is fixed before placing an outbound call to the customer. That means checking with another internal team member. This then entails:

1. Launching Outlook Address Book.
2. Pointing to Global Address List.
3. Double-clicking a name.
4. Finding the appropriate number.
5. Dialing on the desktop phone.

Using OCS 2007 with presence, the process is:

1. Right-click internal colleague's name directly within the CRM record.
2. Choose "Call this Person" or "Send an Instant Message to this Person."

Aside from access to the global IP network, where is the telco, cable company or other access service provider involved?

Web 2.0 Enterprises

I wouldn't say many small or mid-sized businesses or entities are adopting tools such as wikis, blogs and the like, but it appears lots of enterprises have figured out they are quite helpful. At least that's what one IDG survey finds. Nor would I venture so far as to say the generally more collaborative world we seem to be moving towards is transforming older hierachical and closed modes of organizing enterprises. But something is happening. And it ultimately doesn't matter whether a transformation creates the new tools that are needed, or the existence of the tools foment a transformation in the ways things are done. Either way, more collaboration results.