It's a statement that I hear often lately, as more traditional software vendors start to invest in cloud computing, that they're "late to the cloud". Of course many of those who are saying it are "pure play" SaaS vendors that are no doubt starting to feel some competitive pressure as more vendors start selling SaaS applications. I also hear it from colleagues and I suppose that it is a true statement of fact but to me there's a little more to the story than that. I think the bigger question might be whether being late to the cloud is "bad".

The general perception is that being early to market with a product gives the vendor first mover advantage and lets them capture market share and mind share before any competitors get into the game. There's certainly a lot of ... Read the article

I am sure that this may have just happened to everyone out there and on a rather regular basis, too! Specially, if you are a blogger! Just as I was putting together a blog post on the topic of the 40-Hour Work Week (- “The Magic of Sustainable Growth”), which I published a couple of days ago I happened to bump into another really interesting and worth while watching video clip that touched quite a bit on the very same topic that I covered on that article: work life balance, although, like I said in the past, I have grown to be more fond of the concept of Work Life Integration, instead. The video itself comes from the Ignite series (Ignite Philly, this time around) and it’s a rather thought-provoking 5 minute-long inspiring speech by Pam Selle that tries to share with each and everyone of us how whenever we reach the tipping point of stating “Get a life!” we may as well ... Read the article

Want users to use your cloud-based web site?  Follow these guidelines, so that users can sign up easily and use it.  Sadly, there are soooo many ways that web sites can do this wrong.  The result is a bewildering variety of inconsistent and sometimes incomprehensible mechanisms that unnecessarily annoy the very users you are trying to attract. Heed these guidelines carefully!

As a technology analyst my job requires me to sign up for and access hundreds of different web based applications, most of them cloud based.  Those that perform right are a pleasure.  Most, however violate one or more of these guidelines.  As far as I can tell, this comes from a failure to think through all the consequences of the design.  After a particularly egregious example this morning I compiled this “Bill of Rights” that a user should enjoy in order to...

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One of the big issues for a buyer today considering Cloud Computing is how do you choose a good Cloud provider from a bad one?  Who do you trust?  Maybe the Cloud Topic needs some standards?  Well actually there are so many standards bodies and vendor groups that the picture is confused - something that I try to demystify with my companyand with the various cloud groups that I'm involved with.  If you type "cloud standards" in to Google, you'll find an alphabet soup of acronyms, and even the first entry in the list - a "Wiki site for Cloud Standards Coordination" - initially looks promising, but doesn't yet mention some of the key organizations that have something worthwhile to contribute ... Read the article

Although work today is primarily digital, most organizations still have a spatial dimension, and most of those spaces have a designed organizational role. Even in the digital age we still think in terms of space. The key thing is that both the organizational structure and space greatly influence the patterns of work. A few years ago, the typical organization design meant that work was divided into multiple parts that were simply added together to create the product. Individual workers did not need to know much more than what was specific to their individual tasks to complete their jobs.

Today, the results of work are not brought together in the end but are communicated throughput the process. A growing number of people are involved in generating ideas and information and bringing those ideas together in collaborative sense making. Work is interaction. Communication is not talking about work. Communication is work.

There are three archetypes of communication in firms: The first type is communication for responsiveness and coordination. This creates the need for transparency. The right hand knows what the... Read the article

We're putting the finishing touches on our 2012 predictions, so look for that post in the next week or so, but in the mean time, and in the spirit of accountability and openness, I decided to take a few minutes to look back at our predictions for 2011 and see how we did. Here's the original post, if you want to refer to it, but I'll go through each one here again:

1. Social profiles become the Internet fingerprint - I'd say we get a B+ on this one. While profiles are an essential part of your online persona, the proliferation of profiles is still something of a problem. Certainly more sites are using Facebook connect or Twitter as a de facto "standard" to help... Read the article

It’s the time of year once again to reflect and predict. It’s sort of like being the weatherman; you don’t get a lot of credit for getting it right, nor do you get a lot of disdain if you get it wrong. So, have fun with my predictions and make sure to bring your umbrella, just in case.

1. We still won’t agree what to call it

This debate really started in 2010, but has continued to a point where people have stopped debating it and just call it different things. Enterprise 2.0, Social Business, Enterprise Social, Social Media for...

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2011 is history, but before we start to focus on what will happen in enterprise tech in 2012, let's take a short look back at some of the events that make it a very big,  important year in a lot of ways. The tech world continued to go through a settling process that is the fall out of the great recession and the rapid intersection of a few key trends. We have often referred to this as the new normal and I think that we are starting to have a much clearer picture of what that really means for tech, for software and most importantly for businesses. Four key trends, or pillars as my IDC colleagues like to call them, are the underpinnings of change in IT. These four trends are also... Read the article

Towards the end of each year I share some thoughts on what awaits in the year ahead.

It is actually a lot easier to look years into the future than just a single year, as while we can readily discern broad trends, the major events in a year are usually unforeseeable, though they may express the longer-term directions. However as the pace of change accelerates, it is becoming a little easier to see the themes, if not the specifics, of the year ahead. My Map of the Decade shows the 14 ExaTrends that are shaping this 10-year period. Today I launch my 12 Themes for 2012, in conjunction with Future Exploration Network. ...

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John Hagel III co-author of the book “The Power of Pull” was invited on stage for a discussion with Dr. Pehong Chen, CEO of BroadVision about how companies are (or are not) adopting of social technologies at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Santa Clara yesterday. I am a big fan of him and his latest book, so I took notes on how he sees companies resolving these difficulties.

PC: Do you think most companies “get it?”

JH: Most companies are still trying to figure enterprise 2.0 / social business technology out.  They don’t know what it is about, nor how to adopt it.

PC: What are some patterns that people use to get into it. ... 

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