AIIM E-DOC Magazine, May/Jun 2005 - Greg Lloyd, Traction Software writes: Unless
you've been hiding in a cave, you've probably run across the term
"weblog" (or "blog") in the news. Perhaps you have a teenager who loves
LiveJournal (over 6 million free or very low cost blogs and growing) or
followed political controversies inflamed by bloggers during the 2004
campaign.
As published in AIIM EDOC Magazine, May/June 2005 pp. 42-44 See edocmagazine.com Copyright (c) 2005 AIIM, reproduced with permission For a PDF edition of this paper, click here
Weblog defined
A weblog is web site typically made up of short, frequently updated
entries ("posts") containing commentary as well as links to other sites
that the author finds interesting. Weblog server software makes it very
simple for the author to add or edit posts, and automatically formats
all posts using an attractive diary or newspaper format. Posts are
typically shown in reverse chronological order, with the most recent
item at the top of the page, and older items rolling off into an
archive that's easy to browse or search.
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) defined
In the 1990's Dave Winer and others created an XML data format for
distribution of updates from weblogs and news sites. The idea is very
simple: a web site can automatically publish an update page in RSS
format with the title and brief summary of new items that have been
posted to the site and a link back to the full post.
This allows programs called RSS readers to scan the RSS update pages of
a large number of sites every hour or so. An RSS reader can present a
news ticker style summary in a web browser, Outlook mailbox or desktop
client. You choose the weblogs you want to "subscribe" to based on your
interests.
How do you find RSS feeds that interest you?
One way is by reading weblogs which link to one another, holding a
public conversation about topics that interest you. Your can also find
RSS feeds using RSS search engines like Technorati or Feedster that
work like Google, but search RSS feeds as they are updated in close to
real time.
Now you can search for your company name across over a universe of
independent RSS feeds and find out: "Who's talking about my company
right now, and what are they saying?". You can monitor the entire RSS
universe.
How big is the RSS * universe? In March 2005 Technorati tracked changes
to over 7 million weblogs and traced close to a billion links (and
Feedster is not far behind).
Weblog Characteristics
To me, the most striking characteristics of weblogs are:
1) Simplicity: Anyone who's comfortable writing an email message can
learn what they need to author their own weblog in a very short time
(minutes to hours).
2) Reach: With the rise of internet search engines, what an individual
writes on a free weblog can reach an audience the size of the World
Wide Web.
3) Scaling like the web: The combination of weblogs, web search engines
syndication feeds (RSS) and syndication feed search engines proves that
it's possible to find and stay informed about what you care about in an
environment as vibrant and chaotic as the World Wide Web.
Why should any enterprise settle for less?
I don't believe they will. The value of actually knowing what's
happening in your business (and what your business knows) has driven
large enterprises to write large checks for top-down Knowledge
Management systems with generally disappointing results. (1 comment)
The new generation internet provides a model which can make everyday
working communication simpler, while keeping everyone with an active
(and valid) interest well informed. It provides much better awareness,
but cuts non-productive reporting overhead. Equally important, the same
web and syndication infrastructure works for dissemination of
information from line-of-business systems; for example, a syndication
feed of sales wins from your CRM system is valuable to everyone in your
company. Working communication within an enterprise has some
characteristics that differ from the public weblogs by employees and
CEO's that have been the focus of many "business blogging" conferences.
Let's use project management as the first example.
Weblogs for project management
A product team for a new cell phone product might include:
1) A core team from corporate marketing, engineering and management;
2) Corporate stakeholders from finance, legal, sales, manufacturing, purchasing and customer support.
3) External stakeholders including key customers, key component
suppliers, expert consultants, distributors and advertising firms.
A weblog can help deliver the new product on time, under budget, with
the right mix of features and a sales and marketing campaign ready to
roll. The core team uses the weblog to keep track of their own
research, discussion, debate, decisions and follow-up actions.
Although
the core team may be in the same location, it’s common for them to be
juggling several projects at once. They want to stay on the same page
internally and keep external stakeholders engaged, but cut reporting
overhead.
Corporate and external stakeholders can tune in for updates and issues
that hit their particular interest, and respond when the core team
identifies a issue where stakeholder feedback would help. External
stakeholders are often in a different time zone (or country), and all
stakeholders are typically engaged in many projects other than that
which is the focus of the core team. Stakeholders need to switch their
attention to the details of the core team's project very quickly when
an issue pops up.
The cast of characters changes frequently, and it's important to be
able to bring a new core team, corporate or external stakeholder up to
speed quickly.
The project weblog makes it easier to understand the dynamics of the
project and team as well as track the discussion that surrounds the
formal plans, specifications and budget that might be stored in a
content management system.
Personal versus Enterprise weblog characteristics
Project management is an excellent example of weblog use in an
enterprise, but note the shift in focus from personal to enterprise
use:
1) Enterprise weblogs tend to have group rather than individual
authors. For example, it's much simpler to have all 100 members of the
core team participate a weblog that focuses on the definition and
delivery of the product rather than trying to stitch together
discussion about this one project scattered across a hundred personal
weblogs. Each core team and stakeholder becomes a member of one or more
project weblogs. They can easily shift their attention from one weblog
to another. A syndication feed for each weblog makes it easy to monitor
the pulse of many projects.
2) Enterprise weblogs require the ability to securely address a
selected audience: Most personal weblogs are open to the entire World
Wide Web. Most enterprise weblogs are either behind corporate firewalls
or allow selective access to particular audience by name or role.
3) Because each project weblog has an explicit business purpose, the
content tends to focus on working communication rather than personal
opinion about topics unrelated to the project. Having a group weblog
open to interested (and authorized) stakeholders also tends to keep
discussion on topic. It’s also useful to have more private weblogs
available to the core team for candid discussion.
4) For general use, give each employee who wants one a personal weblog
that encourages candid discussion of any topic, particularly when
deployed behind the firewall.
Other enterprise weblog applications
It's not hard to draw a similar diagram of core team, internal, and
external stakeholder communication for marketing and sales teams,
particularly those who sell complex and expensive products such as
pharmaceuticals, manufacturing equipment, aircraft etc. Other excellent
candidates include:
Competitive Intelligence / Market Research groups within large corporations
Professional service firms: Legal, Business Consulting, Advertising
State and local government: Homeland security, Law enforcement, Public project management, Public land and resource management.
Each
of these use cases offers the ability to connect and put on the record
the working communication that typically is written once for
information but gets lost in email, which is one of the worlds best 1:1
dialog mechanism, but one of the worst imaginable 100:1000 person
working communication platforms.
By making daily working communication simpler and more effective for
the people who do the work, weblogs create a resource that can be used
to keep internal and external stakeholders informed as well as creating
a valuable record for top down analysis.
Are Weblogs really ECM Lite? Yes
I believe that enterprise weblog software (with security, scalability
and compatibility with enterprise identity management) will become ECM
Lite - a complete solution for some businesses – and a working
communication layer over traditional ECM and line of business systems
for large enterprises.
Paul Taylor of the Financial Times writes:
"What distinguishes enterprise weblog packages from earlier personal
blogging packages is that they incorporate advanced features such as
permission-based security, archiving, dynamic views and sophisticated
search capabilities to the core features found in all weblog packages.
As a result, some of these enterprise weblog suites are beginning to
look a lot like a low-cost alternative to traditional content
management, knowledge management and groupware software packages.
What is more, unlike most complex enterprise application software -
which typically costs hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars
and may take six months just to deploy the infrastructure - corporate
weblog software uses the standard web infrastructure and can be
deployed almost immediately." - Business logs on to blogging, Financial
Times, March 3, 2004
I believe that like ECM systems, successful enterprise weblogs
deployment requires business process knowledge that can best be
delivered by channel partners who are closest to the enterprise
customer, and weblog software that lines up with enterprise needs for
security, scalability, and fit with IT infrastructure.
