Dec 2014 | TeamPage @ Mentions
Traction® TeamPage Fall 2014 Release Introduces inline @ mentions. An @ mention makes it it easy to bring any TeamPage item to someone’s attention just by typing their name. Automatic inline completion makes @ name lookup easy. When a person is mentioned, TeamPage will automatically notify them of follow on comments. Reply to the inline or email notification to add a quick response from your smart phone, tablet, or a Web browser. This is a great way to bring someone into a conversation without sending a hand authored email, text message or other message. @ mentions extend TeamPage's Work Graph model using notation that's familiar from Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other Web services.
Enterprise 2.0 - Are we there yet?
Andrew McAfee writes Nov 20, 2014: "Facebook’s recent announcement that it’s readying a version of its social software for workplaces got me thinking about Enterprise 2.0, a topic I used to think a great deal about. Five years ago I published a book with that title, arguing that enterprise social software platforms would be valuable tools for businesses...
Why did it take so long? I can think of a few reasons. It’s hard to get the tools right — useful and simple software is viciously hard to make. Old habits die hard, and old managers die (or at least leave the workforce) slowly. The influx of ever-more Millennials has almost certainly helped, since they consider email antediluvian and traditional collaboration software a bad joke.
Whatever the causes, I’m happy to see evidence that appropriate digital technologies are finally appearing to help with the less structured, less formal work of the enterprise. It’s about time.
What do you think? Is Enterprise 2.0 finally here? If so, why now? Leave a comment, please, and let us know."
Ada Lovelace Day | Emmy Noether, Mathematician
Ada Lovelace Day celebrates 
the contributions of women in science and technology, follow @FindingAda for news and events. This year I've chosen to write about mathematician Amalie "Emmy" Noether. At the time of her death in April 1935, she was described by Pavel Alexandrov, Albert Einstein, Herman Weyl, Norbert Weiner and others as the most important woman in the history of mathematics. Noether’s First Theorem is a fundamental tool of modern physics and the calculus of variations: every symmetry corresponds to a conservation law. "It was her work in the theory of invariants which led to formulations for several concepts of Einstein's general theory of relativity." [J J O'Connor and E F Robertson, 1997]. Of her later work, Nathan Jacobson said: "The development of abstract algebra, which is one of the most distinctive innovations of twentieth century mathematics, is largely due to her – in published papers, in lectures, and in personal influence on her contemporaries." Einstein wrote Noether's obituary in the New York Times, May 5, 1935:
Named Data Networking - Boffin Alert
On Sep 4, 2014 the Named Data Networking project announced a new consortium to carry the concepts of Named Data Networking (NDN) forward in the commercial world. If this doesn't sound exciting, try The Register's take: DEATH TO TCP/IP cry Cisco, Intel, US gov and boffins galore. What if you could use the internet to access content securely and efficiently, where anything you want is identified by name rather than by its internet address? The NDN concept is technically sweet, gaining traction, and is wonderfully explained and motivated in a video by its principle inventor and instigator Van Jacobson. Read on for the video, a few quotes, reference links, and a few thoughts on what NDN could mean for the Internet of Things, Apple, Google and work on the Web. Short version: Bring popcorn.
Sept 2014 | KMWorld names TeamPage a Trend-Setting Product of 2014
On Sept 1, 2014 KMWorld recognized Traction® Software's TeamPage as a Trend-Setting Product of 2014. KMWorld editor Hugh McKellar writes: "This year, we looked at more than 600 products. Traction® TeamPage was selected by the panel because it demonstrates thoughtful, well-reasoned innovation and execution for the most important constituency of them all: the customer.” Traction Software is honored that KMWorld has again selected TeamPage as a Trend-Setting Product. TeamPage customers such as Alcoa and Athens Group show the value of integrated action tracking and collaboration in support of knowedge management, quality management, project management, and similar business activities. Read KMWorld Trend-Setting Products of 2014
Linked, Open, Heterogeneous
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Art, Data, and Business Duane Degler of Design For Context posted slides from his 5 April 2014 Museums and the Web talk, Design Meets Data (Linked, Open, Heterogeneous). Degler addresses what he calls the LAM (Libraries, Archives, Museums) Digital Information Ecosystem. I believe the same principles apply when businesses connect internal teams, external customers, external suppliers, and partners of all sorts as part of their Business Information Ecosystem. Read Degler's summary and slides, below:
Aug 2014 | Providence Business News - Social tools being adapted for Web-based QC tool
Writing in the 8 Aug 2014 Providence Business News, Staff Writer Patrick Anderson interviewed Traction® Software VP of Sales Jordan Frank and Thomas Cogdell, DTA quality manager for Houston-based firm The Athens Group. The oil-rig consulting firm purchased Traction® TeamPage to support its push for ISO 9001 certified rig inspection, verification and technology assurance services. Anderson quotes Cogdell: “The reason we chose it is because it is Web based with a good security audit and trail feature,” said Thomas Cogdell, DTA quality manager for Athens Group. “Every change to every document is tracked and reported on, and nothing gets lost. It gives us the flexibility to encourage employees to add to the knowledge base freely and the quality control we need.” » Read the full story
July 2014 | TeamPage Notifications
Traction® Traction Software Summer 2014 Release New features include inline-page push Notifications, extending TeamPage's email notifications. Notifications make it simple to focus on activity that's important to you. Get more details, or send a quick reply whether in your office or using your smartphone or tablet. Change what you watch when your priorities and interests change. Available now, contact us for more information or a free trial.
Hello! Greetings from Takashi Okutsu
Hi everyone. I am delighted to introduce myself to you as a member of the Traction Software Team. As some of you know, my name is Takashi Okutsu, and I am the director of Traction Software's Japan Business Office, located in Yokohama.
Thought Vectors - Ted Nelson: Art not Technology
The technoid vision, as expressed by various pundits of electronic media, seems to be this: tomorrow's world will be terribly complex, but we won't have to understand it. Fluttering though halestorms of granular information, ignorant like butterflies, we will be guided by smell, or Agents, or leprechauns, to this or that pretty picture, or media object, or factoid. If we have a Question, it will be possible to ask it in English. Little men and bunny rabbits will talk to us from the computer screen, making us feel more comfortable about our delirious ignorance as we flutter through this completely trustworthy technological paradise about which we know less and less.
Meet Takashi Okutsu: Director, Traction Software Japanese Business Office
Takashi has been a TeamPage wizard since 2007, and now directs Traction Software's Japanese Business Office. Takashi provides exceptional sales, consulting, and support to TeamPage customers in Japan. He is a valued member of the Traction Software global team, and a frequent contributor to the TeamPage Customer Support Forum including development and discussion of TeamPage SDK plug-ins and examples. We invite Japanese visitors to explore TractionSoftware.jp for TeamPage information and a free trial. You are also welcome to join the TeamPage Japan Customer Support Forum to talk with Takashi and Japanese TeamPage customers.
Takashi Okutsu Japanese Business Office
June 2014 | Traction TeamPage 6.0
Traction® Software is proud to announce Traction® TeamPage 6.0, a major release incorporating important new features, improvements, and internal updates, as well as consolidated capabilities from updates shipped over the TeamPage 5.2 baseline. Sign up for a free trial, or download a free TeamPage license for free access to Traction Software's Customer Support and Customer Forum TeamPage server, including installer links and detailed change log information.
Thought Vectors - What Motivated Doug Engelbart
By "augmenting human intellect" we mean increasing the capability of a man to approach a complex problem situation, to gain comprehension to suit his particular needs, and to derive solutions to problems. Increased capability in this respect is taken to mean a mixture of the following: more-rapid comprehension, better comprehension, the possibility of gaining a useful degree of comprehension in a situation that previously was too complex, speedier solutions, better solutions, and the possibility of finding solutions to problems that before seemed insoluble. And by "complex situations" we include the professional problems of diplomats, executives, social scientists, life scientists, physical scientists, attorneys, designers--whether the problem situation exists for twenty minutes or twenty years. We do not speak of isolated clever tricks that help in particular situations. We refer to a way of life in an integrated domain where hunches, cut-and-try, intangibles, and the human "feel for a situation" usefully co-exist with powerful concepts, streamlined terminology and notation, sophisticated methods, and high-powered electronic aids. 1a1
Reinventing the Web II
Updated 19 Jun 2016 Why isn't the Web a reliable and useful long term store for the links and content people independently create? What can we do to fix that? Who benefits from creating spaces with stable, permanently addressable content? Who pays? What incentives can make Web scale permanent, stable content with reliable bidirectional links and other goodies as common and useful as Web search over the entire flakey, decentralized and wildly successful Web? Here's a good Twitter conversation to read:
60% of my fav links from 10 yrs ago are 404. I wonder if Library of Congress expects 60% of their collection to go up in smoke every decade.
— Bret Victor (@worrydream) June 15, 2014
Thought Vectors - Vannevar Bush and Dark Matter
On Jun 9 2014 Virginia Commonwealth University launched a new course, UNIV 200: Inquiry and the Craft of Argument with the tagline Thought Vectors in Concept Space. The eight week course includes readings from Vannevar Bush, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Ted Nelson, Alan Kay, and Adele Goldberg. Assignments include blog posts and an invitation to participate on Twitter using the #thoughtvectors hashtag. The course has six sections taught at VCU, and an open section for the rest of the internet, which happily includes me! This week's assignment is a blog post based on a nugget that participants select from Vannevar Bush's 1945 essay As We May Think. Here's mine:
Continuity and Intertwingled Work
At Apple's WWDC 2014 on 2 Jun 2014, Apple demonstrated how to build a great user experience spanning a your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Apple calls this OS level capability Continuity. It enables you to continue what you're doing across devices and applications by securely encapsulating your identity and the context of your action as an object. From picking up a draft email message started on an iPhone and continuing work with that draft on your Mac, to answering an incoming iPhone call on your Mac, I believe this opens the door for a level of seamless experience that everyone will want for personal use, their family, and at work.
A new TeamPage logo, and a new look at Traction Software.com
You'll be seeing the new TeamPage logo here, on Twitter, Facebook, across the Web, and next to TeamPage sites shown in your browser's tabs; I hope you like the it! I also hope you like the the new look at TractionSoftware.com. Our customers believe TeamPage is ideal for work that combines collaboration and action tracking, including quality management, human resources, project work, intelligence analysis, knowledge management, and compliance. We want TractionSoftware.com to tell this story simply and clearly, and we'll continue to improve this site just as we continually improve TeamPage. Please contact us for insights into how customers use TeamPage to get work done, along with a free trial.
David Shepperton Senior Software Engineer
Roger Fujii Senior Software Engineer
Jordan Frank Vice President Sales
Andy Keller Principal Engineer
Chris Nuzum CTO & Co-Founder
Greg Lloyd President & Co-Founder
Alcoa Tackles IT Projects and Compliance
The IT division of Alcoa Fastening Systems used Traction® TeamPage to reduce time spent on compliance activities by 61% and reduce time to deploy IT systems from sixteen months to seven.
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