Sept 2013 | KMWorld names TeamPage a Trend-Setting Product of 2013
On Sept 1, 2013 KMWorld recognized Traction® Software's TeamPage as a Trend-Setting Product of 2013. KMWorld editor Hugh McKellar writes: "The common thread running through all the products listed here is the unique value—and potential value—they offer the organization, its workers and their various constituencies." Traction Software is honored that KMWorld has again selected Traction® TeamPage as a Trend-Setting Product. TeamPage customers such as Athens Group show the value of an integrated Quality Management system, industry knowledge base, and training curriculum. TeamPage enables Athens Group to train and support a rapidly growing cadre of expert consultants helping customers design, construct, and operate safe, reliable drilling rigs and platforms around the world. Read KMWorld Trend-Setting Products of 2013
How to make your ISO Auditor Smile; And Make Your Professional Life Much Easier
Jordan had a conversation with a TeamPage customer in Sweden who agreed to document and publish a TeamPage case study, but the ISO auditor story is too good to wait. The customer is small precision machined products manufacturer. They initially supplied prototypes to the Swedish defense industry, but now focus on precision products for heavy vehicle manufacturers.
Remembering Doug Engelbart, 30 January 1925 - 2 July 2013
I was very sad to learn that Doug Engelbart passed away at his home on 2 July 2013. Doug had a long life as a visionary engineer, inventor, and pioneer of technology we use every day - and technology where we're just starting to catch up to Doug and his SRI team in 1968. Doug had a quiet, friendly, and unassuming nature combined with deep knowledge, iron will, and a determination to pursue his vision. His vision was to aid humanity in solving complex, difficult and supremely important problems; Doug's goals were noble and selfless. The sense of dealing with an Old Testament prophet - a kindly Moses - is perhaps the greatest loss I and countless others who have met and been inspired by Doug feel today. I've written frequently about Doug in the past, and I'll continue to do so. Here are a few remembrances and resources that seem appropriate. I'll update this list over the next several days. Farewell Doug and my sincere condolences to his family and many friends.
Decagon Devices: Plans, Products, Projects, Procedures and ISO 9001 Quality Management
Decagon Devices (Decagon.com) designs, manufactures and markets scientific instruments used to measure water, light and heat in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. Decagon devices are used by 80% of the top one hundred food companies to measure water activity in food; by farms to measure soil for water and nutrient use; and by NASA where Decagon devices were sent to Mars to measure humidity and wind. Decagon deployed Traction® TeamPage for project management, ISO certification of their procedure management, internal corporate communications and knowledge management.
Pharma and Biotech Risk Management
Risks are the leading cause of costly delays in the process of bringing a biotech product to market. Risk management in the product development process all too often means one person juggling a list of risks in a spreadsheet. It's hard to edit, but even harder to open a discussion on an existing risk when someone has a question, sees a problem, or wants to add a new risk. Traction® Software partner Rosemary Vu used Traction® TeamPage's Section Table widget and extended TeamPage's Article to create a Risk form. For more on TeamPage Section Tables, see Q: How do I link to an Excel file? A: Why Would you Do That?
Working Across Boundaries
In his Jun 2, 2013 blog post, Chess Media analyst and author Jacob Morgan asks: How Open is Too Open? He asks "Would you be comfortable working in an all glass building where people can see everything you do and every move you make?" Jacob outlines the benefits of transparency: "Keep everyone on the same page; Build trust and fostering better relationships; Allow employees (and customers) to contribute ideas and value when they see the opportunity to do so." Jacob recognizes that a balance needs to be struck, but not being transparent enough may do more harm than good. He ask: "How open is too open?" I agree with the benefits Jacob outlines, and believe the answer to Jacob's question depends on the answer to a critical question: "Transparency for what purpose?" I'll start the ball rolling in with this post, including some real-life customer examples.
June 2013 | Enterprise Collaboration & Social Software Industry Report, Redwood Capital
A new Redwood Capital Group industry report released the first week of June 2013 focuses on Enterprise Collaboration and Social Software. The thirty-two page report includes Market Trends, Competitive Landscape, M&A Activity, Private Financing, Valuation Trends, and Emerging Private Companies, including Traction® Software. You can download a free copy of this and related industry reports from the Redwood Capital Sector Focus page.
18-19 Jun 2013 | Traction Software E2 Boston 2013 Social and Collaboration Track Sponsor
Traction Software is happy to be a Social and Collaboration Track sponsor at this year's E2 Boston Conference. Please visit Traction Software at Demo Pavilion 38 to see how customers build better products and work better together using Traction TeamPage. Traction Software is a leader in social task management and a consistent innovator in delivering business value to demanding customers around the world. Learn how John Hagel of Deloitte documented and analyzed a TeamPage customer's 61% reduction in time required for compliance activity using TeamPage.
When you visit the Demo Pavilion you can also get a free copy of Jacob Morgan's excellent book: The Collaborative Organization: A Strategic Guide to Solving Your Internal Business Challenges Using Emerging Social and Collaborative Tools, see Greg's Amazon review. We'll give away twenty-four copies to people who: 1) Ask for a free copy of Collaborative Organization by Tweeting a request to @TractionTeam before Monday 17 June, and 2) Show up in person and claim your book, first come, first served.
Open Cafe: E2.0 Implementation and Adoption
@JeffMerrell posed a series of questions for his Master's Program in Learning & Organizational Change. I'll offer my own experience as it pertains to each of his question areas.
Contextual Computing At Work
In Co.Design May 24, 2013 Peter Morrison of Jump Associates writes The Future of Technology isn't Mobile, it's Contextual. He says that the way we respond to the world around is based on situational awareness. "The way we respond to the world around us is so seamless that it’s almost unconscious. Our senses pull in a multitude of information, contrast it to past experience and personality traits, and present us with a set of options for how to act or react. Then, it selects and acts upon the preferred path. This process--our fundamental ability to interpret and act on the situations in which we find ourselves--has barely evolved since we were sublingual primates living on the Veldt.
Join us at E2 Boston 2013 - Traction Software is Social and Collaboration Track Sponsor
How well you work with your colleagues, online and off, will make the difference when trying to win the next deal, design the next product or craft the next winning strategy. Consider how important people are to process and how social collaboration (versus some pre-ordained workflow) is the barrier to or the enabler of successful outcomes. We see immense value when people document their knowledge, streamline their communication and track actions to completion in TeamPage. We hope you can join us to see TeamPage and learn from the leading analysts and practitioners at E2 Boston June 17 through 19.
May 2013 | TeamPage listed as key product in Technavio's Global Enterprise Social Networking Market Report
Traction® Software Inc (along with its Traction® TeamPage product) has been recognized as a key player in TechNavio's upcoming report on the Global Enterprise Social Networking market 2012-2016. TechNavio analysts forecast "the Global Enterprise Social Networking Software market to grow at a CAGR of 51.94 percent over the period 2012-2016." They continue: "one of the key factors contributing to this market growth is the increased requirement of intranet interactivity among multiple teams in an organization. The market has also been witnessing an increased use of mobile enterprise social networking for sales activities. However, the risk of confidential information leakage could pose a challenge to the growth of this market."
May 2013 | Getting Work Done with Social Task Management
Alan Lepofsky @alanlepo of Constellation Research coined Social Task Management last summer to describe a trend he saw in December 2011 as task management started to enter Enterprise 2.0 systems. Lepofsky's presentation at E2.0 Boston 2012 highlighted Traction® TeamPage as a social business platform with a native (versus integrated) task management (slide 34). Luis Suarez @elsua does a fantastic job of summarizing key points in Social Task Management - When Social Business Got Down to Work. Later in the year (October 2012), Constellation Research published Lepofsky's research as Getting Work Done with Social Task Management. The research speaks to problems with traditional standalone task management systems which create top down choke points, lose context, limit collaboration and create information silos. Lepofsky argues that collaboration is at the core of social task management while describing the many benefits.
7 May 2013 | Real Story Group's Updated Traction TeamPage Evaluation in Enterprise Collaboration and Social Software Report
The Real Story Group's Kashyap Kompella @kashyapkompella posted an update describing RSG's new version of their Enterprise Collaboration and Social Software Evaluations research covering twenty-five key software vendors. The new version includes a major update for the Traction® TeamPage section, including TeamPage project management, action tracking, TeamPage's ability to span and connect systems of record, and the ability to embed TeamPage discussions in other Web applications.
Lost Roots of Project Management: Think Agile that Scales
The Manhattan Project, Atlas, and Polaris projects are cited as roots for traditional phased stage-gate Project Management, but didn't use that model. New high innovation projects shouldn't either; think agile that scales. Read this fascinating 2009 paper by Sylvain Lenfle and Christoph Loch of INSEAD, cited on Twitter by Glen B. Alleman who calls it "breathtaking".
Big Data, Meet Long Data, Meet Blog Data
Big Data Meet Long Data by Jeff Bertolucci - @jbertolucci - column appears this week in InformationWeek to reminds us that "Long Data" or historical data is vital for analysis and comprehension of trends that span years.
1 March 2013 | Traction Software Named to KMWorld's 100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management
For the ninth consecutive year, KMWorld recognized Traction® Software by naming the company to their annual KMWorld 100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management. KMWorld’s list is compiled by KM practitioners, theorists, analysts, vendors, their customers and colleagues. This is the 13th year of the list. "Criteria for inclusion varies, but all companies have things in common. Each has either helped to create a market, redefine one or enhance one, and they all share two things—the velocity of innovation and the agility to serve their customers" says Hugh McKellar, KMWorld Editor-in-Chief.
Greg Lloyd, Traction Software President and co-founder said: "We're honored that KMWorld consistently ranks Traction Software as a company that matters in Knowledge Management. Traction Software employees work closely with customers to build a stronger and more useful Traction® TeamPage platform." Lloyd continued, "Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter 2012 TeamPage releases introduced many user interface, performance, and Developer SDK additions and improvements to make it easier for customers to get work done. I thank Traction Software's employees and customers for earning this recognition." See the 2013 KMWorld 100 list.
Problem and Process rather than Incentives for E2.0 Tools
Over on Quora, Ben Lopatin @bennylope has a best-answer to a question on the best ways to incentivize people to use E2.0 knowledge management and collaboration. He starts by shunning external incentives (as I do in Need for Incentives, and other Innovation Myths) and works through a few key principles which I've seen work time and time again:
PLM Gets Social, Untangles Ball of Confusion
Stan Przybylinski - @smprezbo - of CIM Data advised an audience at Social PLM 2012 on inevitable social side of product lifecycle management. In the talk (video on YouTube here), he identifies companies including Traction Software (Minute 9:06) whose platforms are being used by product teams for everything from building requirements, to managing risks and simply discussing product issues.
25 Oct 2012 | ZDNET Japan on the TeamPage Cloud
A column in ZDNet Japan covered the release by Applied Knowledge Co, Ltd, Yokohama of the TeamPage Cloud in Japan. They wrote "The greatest advantage of TeamPage is that it provides the virtual space to aggregate any information concerning the business and progress in the work space." The column discusses how companies in Japan can take advantage of collaboration tools like Traction® TeamPage to produce business value. Japanese companies can get started with Cloud and Download options as of the first of October 2012.
E-Mail: an On-Ramp for Enterprise Social Media
Bill Ives, @billives, points to Nathan Eddy's eWeek column titled Businesses Still Reliant on Email as Social Media Use Grows. The column reminds us that Email is still the dominant go-to application of choice and that's not changing any time soon. Rather than run away from email habits, social software in the enterprise has to embrace it. Back in 2004, I gave a presentation at the INBOX conference advocating for the use of Email as an on-ramp for collaboration and an off-ramp for notification.
TeamPage SAAS / Cloud Hosting Helps Bring Customers Closer, Improves Support
As we've put more attention to our cloud hosting (see Traction Software and Traction Software Japan) with free trials and an increasing hosted customer base, I'm seeing first hand how the customer relationship can become much closer, more interactive and more informed. In the last 24 hours, I was able to quickly help:
Carving a Path to Productive Knowledge Management: How?
I gave the following presentation at the first ever meeting of the Boston Chapter of the Knowledge Management Association today. As this was a first meeting, I thought I'd raise the issue that "managing knowledge" is about as daunting a task as "herding cats."
JSB on Capturing Context not Just Content
In John Seeley Brown's KMWorld Keynote (live streamed 17 Oct 2012 at kmworld.com), he makes an important point about how knowledge has no boundaries. @johnseelybrown #KM12
Ada Lovelace Day | Sunita Williams, Astronaut and Captain U.S. Navy
Ada Lovelace Day celebrates the contributions of women in science and technology. This year I've chosen to write about Suni Williams, NASA Astronaut and US Navy Captain currently commanding Expedition 33 on the International Space Station. I hope young women reading about Ada Lovelace Day now are encouraged by her example to pursue their dreams where ever they may lead - here on Earth or as the first Earthling to set foot on Mars.
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