Collaboration Myths

All those collaboration tools that have been developed over the years may not make your team more effective, Gartner argues. Gartner has said that collaboration initiatives often fail because people hold some basic misconceptions about the collaborative process.

Among the myths are the notion that "the right tools will make us collaborative." It really is not about tools. Tools help people do things they want to do. Some organizations might not really "want" to practice collaboration.

Another myth is that "collaboration is inherently good." That is true sometimes, but not always, Gartner argues. Without quantifiable goals, initiatives easily can fail.

Unmasking the collaboration myth

Disturbing Findings on Start-Up Job Creation

New businesses contribute a disproportionate share of new job creation in the United States. So it is disturbing that new research released today by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation suggests that the country faces a far more fundamental employment challenge that pre-dates the recession by many years.

Researchers call the problem a slow jobs "leak." Put simply, new businesses are adding workers at a lower rate than historically has been the case.

The report shows that since the middle of the last decade and perhaps longer, new businesses have been generating fewer and fewer new jobs. The cohort of new firms that started in 2009, for example, is on course to contribute one million fewer jobs in the next decade than historical averages would suggest.

Read more here.

"While the recession certainly deepened the jobs deficit, the U.S. economy stopped producing enough new jobs well before the downturn," said Robert Litan, Kauffman Foundation vice president of research and policy and study co-author. "Historically, startups are the key to long-term employment growth, and they have been hiring fewer people for the last several years. We won’t fix our core unemployment problem in the United States until young businesses get back on track."

Citing data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the study found that the number of new employer businesses has fallen 27 percent since 2006. When including new employer businesses and newly self-employed workers, the level of start-ups has held steady or even edged up since the recession, according to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity.

But that encouraging sign is somewhat misleading because firms that support only the self-employed owner do not scale to generate the new jobs needed to support overall economic growth.

Historically, new firms in the United States have generated about three million new jobs every year, but that recent cohorts have performed much worse, creating only 2.3 million jobs in 2009.

At the level of individual businesses, one data series (BLS establishment data) showed that in the 1990s new establishments opened their doors with about 7.5 jobs on average, compared to 4.9 jobs today.

The study also found that as a group, recent cohorts of new businesses have been adding jobs at a slower pace than earlier cohorts even when they do well and grow, but that growth hasn't made up for lower employment levels at inception.

"Not only are these businesses starting out smaller than their predecessors, they are staying smaller," said E.J. Reedy, Kauffman Research Fellow and study co-author. Thus, falling contributions of jobs at new businesses will be felt in the U.S. economy for years."

The researchers said that rather than focusing on discrete events such as the opening of a new manufacturing plant or relocation of a large business to a local community, policymakers must recognize that the long-term jobs outlook will be driven by the collective decisions of young and small businesses whose changing employment patterns are hard to identify or influence.

They also warned against the false hope that growth in the number of self-employed workers can resolve the U.S. employment shortfall.

PayPal Has to be In Retail Payments

PayPal believes that by 2015, digital currency will be accepted everywhere in the United States, from local businesses to large chains. By "digital currency," PayPal means a viable currency alternative to credit cards, debit cards and cash. Already a leader in online payments, PayPal believes the next, and largest opportunity, is retail payments at physical locations.

Supporting Payments In The Physical World Is Critical For PayPal

Mapping Twitter and Flickr Geo-Location

Geolocation data for Flickr and Twitter posts. Flickr data is shown in orange and Twitter data is displayed in blue. Not every tweet or Flickr post has geo-location data attached, but it is becoming a more-common practice, it seems.

Mapping Twitter and Flickr Geo-Location

Windows Phone 7 OS Market Share Gains Still A Ways Off

A growing number of analysts may be forecasting that Windows Phone 7 could overtake every mobile platform except Android within a few years, but Microsoft is "managing expectations." CEO Steve Ballmer admitted to the firm's Worldwide Partner Conference that the new operating system has had limited impact so far. 'In a year, we've gone from very small to …. very small."

Many think the Nokia deal, replacing Symbian with Windows Phone 7, will change all that, and in dramatic fashion, giving the WP7 operating system a huge boost in sales volume. Pyramid Research even believes WP7 will overtake Android, on the strength of Nokia's sales volume.

Of course, Microsoft's coziness with Nokia is likely to lead other traditional licensees to back off a bit, as it appears Nokia will have unusual rights to modify the way WP7 operates, compared to other licensees.

Wisely, or fortuitously, Microsoft did not decide to strike the Nokia deal with Research in Motion, as many had been suggesting for years. RIM has been losing market share since 2008, in large part because of perceived weakness in the broader smart phone area, despite the historic strength in business-focused messaging devices.

WP7 is "very small", admits Ballmer - Rethink Wireless:

Australian Consumer Attitudes Show Mobile Payments Issues

A survey conducted by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) confirms one fundamental element of the mobile payments business. People in developed countries do not think they have a compelling need for some convenient, trusted new way to pay for things online or in retail stores. That means mobile payments have to provide new value, rather than simply displacing payment systems that consumers find satisfactory.


It also is important, one might add, to demonstrate some compelling value for retailers who will have to invest in new equipment and software to support mobile payments. 


Australians surveyed by the ACMA are generally satisfied with the electronic payment systems that are currently available in Australia, including debit and credit cards, internet transfers and payment services including BPay and PayPal because they offer convenient, quick methods for making purchases in store and over the internet.


The study also suggests that Australian consumers associate mobile payments with ways to purchase digital content such as ringtones for their mobile phone, or a method of voting on TV shows or entering competitions.  


The research indicated that any new mobile payment service will need to offer some advantages over current payment methods. For example, mobile payment services will need to be easier, more convenient or quicker than current electronic payments. The technology will also need to be easy for people to adopt.  


Mobile payment services that are processed by banking institutions, as opposed to telcos or mobile payment services, are perceived as more trustworthy. Respondents did not believe that telcos or mobile payment service companies have the same level of guarantees in place to protect against fraud and misuse of personal data as banks do.  


The research findings showed that users were more likely to consider payment methods that only give access to limited funds. People felt more comfortable about payments that were linked to a pre-loaded account or that only allowed the user to spend funds they have, such as with a debit card. 


But there are some “early adopter” mobile payment scenarios that make sense to people. “On the go” transactions involving micro-payments are areas where respondents see value and convenience.


There is also an opportunity for mobile payments to offer transactions that are instant and can be completed anywhere. There was a positive response to the idea of buying tickets by text message.


Respondents also had strong concerns about adding payments directly to a mobile bill linked to a credit card. They also worried that mobile payment services would involve extra charges.
Read the report here.

$1 Billion to be Spent in 2011 on Mobile Ads

U.S. advertisers will spend more than $1 billion this year on mobile display and search ads to reach consumers who will make more than $8 billion in retail purchases on their mobile phones, according to Forrester Research.

Read more here.: