Different technologies for Forms
This is a useful post on technologies for creating and capturing form data. Too many technologies of course. Interestingly no mention of OOo
Tagged: Collaboration
Office 12 new XML formats
This is big news and widely reported, and live on video. I am increasingly impressed around the evolution of Office, I think Microsoft is finally realising that people don’t want more incremental functions to refine what they already do. They want new way of working to be enabled. The new features in 12 seem to be going in that direction at least in the collaboration and information management areas, I can’t wait to see what they do when they can build on top of Longhorn and WinFS. That’s not to say that OOo is not doing some great creative stuff as well, and of course the killer value proposition of OOo will be its ubiquity as within 3 years I doubt there will be a corporate desktop anywhere that does not have access to OOo, I don’t think we will be able to say that about office 12, so Microsoft needs to get creative, Metro is the first glimmer of that, we will have to wait and see!
One of the best places to keep informed seems to be Brian Jone’s blog, a bit about Brian:
Brian is a program manager on the Word team. He’s been at Microsoft for …
War rooms increase productivity
Some of the best years of my working life were spent in an office environment I designed to promote collaborative work. It had many of the characteristics of a “war room”. With quiet areas around the sides, tables in the middle and loads of break-out areas, white-boards, flip charts and a design review/presentation area. I described this environment in a previous post. I have generally been frustrated at the lack of discussion about workspace design in the IT press, so I was pleased to come across this article that resonated strongly with my experience:
Recently, many companies in the software industry have been experimenting with putting teams of workers into “war rooms” to enhance communication and promote intense collaboration, explains Stephanie Teasley, an assistant research scientist in the U-M School of Information’s Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work.
Instead of toiling in separate cubicles, workers sit at wall-less workstations in one big, open room. The room is typically outfitted with central worktables, whiteboards and flip charts to facilitate group discussions. While companies expect benefits from such arrangements, workers sometimes balk at the idea, fearing they’ll sacrifice privacy and the quiet they need to concentrate on demanding tasks. The U-M …
Uses and misuses of collaborative technology
I am working on refreshing a great guide that my companies research team produced on this topic a few years ago. I have some interesting material, and recently came across this book which seems to address a small part of the subject area pretty well. I ordered it from Amazon.com today, so it should arrive in the UK early next week.
Get the most out of conference calls—whether you’re a presenter or participant
Turn web conferences and videoconferences into results-getting virtual meetings
A checklist of things to remember before you send your next e-mail
Deal with all the e-mail you receive
Use instant messaging to connect with virtual teams
Do’s and don’ts when using voice mail
Conduct virtual job interviews
Prepare for and conduct the conference call, and tips for following up
Minimize your legal liability when using electronic communication
Metro – head to head with PDF!
At last Microsoft seem to have decided to deliver a portable document format for distribution and archive. It’s code named metro and was demonstrated at WinHEC. Here is a snippet from an article in Computer World:
The format, based on XML, will be licensed royalty free and users will be able to open Metro files without a special client. In the demonstration, a Metro file was opened and printed from Internet Explorer, Microsoft’s Web browser.
Printers and printer drivers can include support for Metro and deliver better and faster printing results than with today’s printing technology, Microsoft said. On stage, a Xerox printer with Metro built in was used to print a sample slide.
It’s going to be an open specification, so says Jancology:
Metro is build on top of an XML based page description language similar to Adobe’s PostScript. This happens to be tied into Avalon — Longhorn’s presentation subsystem. Microsoft is releasing publicly the specification for Metro on Monday royalty-free.
What do I want from this format:
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The fidelity we have come to expect from PDF when we want it
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The reflow we have come to expect from HTML when targeting different screen formats
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Full support for …
Information overload – a great place to hide – but a poor place to work!
Of course some people do get a lot of email and need to read a lot of blogs, but it’s also a great place to hide away from doing what you really need to be doing. I have noticed the following types of avoidance behaviour (the example below are not always avoidance behaviour of course):
- Taking lots of notes (hiding away from the purpose of the meeting)
- Making very long lists of “things to do” and fine tuning the list and the priorities of the tasks on the list (hiding away from doing the tasks on the list)
- Reading hundreds of blog posts (making yourself feel very busy)
- Languishing in hundreds of emails (when you should be asking yourself – what are you doing wrong, not delegating, not journalling, not managing expectations, not creating process etc)
- Making lots of blog posts (when you should be working)
So how do I score on this list:
- Note taking, pretty good, I have always believed it is better to focus on the meeting rather than my notes and been lucky enough to have a memory that’s good enough to remember stuff that’s important. Of course it doesn’t always work and I have tried several times to …
Information overload and collaboration!
I am being overloaded by information on “information overload”, just today one of my friends posted on the topic – always an event. Then I came across a few posts in my regular feeds. So I started following the trail. Why – because I am easily interested mainly – but also because I am interested in the effect of information overload on collaboration (which I am currently researching) My logic goes something like this:
- When people are co-located, the barrier to collaborate is very low
- For co-located people the range of sensory input is very high, for example overheard conversations, raised voices, moaning in the corridors, teams not talking to each other, people with smiles on their faces, people working late, looking worried etc
- So as people move out of line of sight the barrier to collaborate increases rapidly with distance and the subconscious inputs decrease rapidly.
- To compensate we now need to seek out information from people, this means generally that we need to:
- pro-actively go looking for information
- try and figure out from emails what people actually mean
- try and determine if – when we cold call people and ask them what’s going on whether – they are tired, busy, …
VMWare 5 and productivity
I have just installed VMWare 5 on my main desktop machine (2GB) and my TC1100 Tablet (1.5GB) and I have been very impressed, I have also along the way been very impressed by the latest crop of Microsoft Servers. Here is a quick run through of the last couple of days.
I have been feeling really rotten for the last 48 hours due mainly to a short lived virus that has wrought havoc with my already screwed up immune system. As a result I needed some distractions, playing around with VMWare 5 seemed the ideal solution. Here’s how I spent the worst hours of the last 2 days:
- Installed VMWare 5, that was very easy – my best VMWare experience to date and so much better than my experience with Virtual Server 2005 the day before. I liked the idea of Virtual Server because it would allow me to use its Active X control console to embed live Windows Sessions in my PowerPoint presentations. In the end I hated Virtual Server so much by comparison with the ultra slick VMWare that I gave up on the idea. Later I remembered I could probably do the same thing with the RDP …
Experiments with Skype
After an initial abortive attempt at using Skype I started to use it again yesterday with impressive results. Certainly BT to BT calls seem excellent, BT to cable was where I had the problems last time I tried. In fact I was so impressed that I purchased a SkypeIn number and unlimited voicemail for £24 for 12 months, which is a lot cheaper and more flexible than installing a business line. I then setup my Treo so that when I am at home all of my calls are automatically forwarded to my SkypeIn number and hence to my main desktop. When I leave home all calls revert to my Treo.
Anyone wanting to test out the quality – if you know me – ring my mobile on Wednesday; chances are it will divert you to my SkypeIn number, even better get Skype yourself!
If it all works as expected then my wife will be pleased because I won’t be hogging the home telephone line, and it’s much easier working with my microphone and PC speakers than with a conventional phone/speakerphone. I need to test it later on my Tablet over wireless so that I keep my home mobility.
Whilst investigating …
Personal Information Lifecycle Managemenet
My company is currently re-launching its knowledge management environment, so I thought it would be useful to re-think my requirements from a personal and then (in another blog post) from a team/project perspective. The diagram on the left represents a simplified view of the personal information management lifecycle and I will step through each phase looking at the commodity tools that I think all knowledge workers should have, by right, in todays world. Then I will discuss some of the more advanced tools that may only be applicable to certain high value processes or industry segments. First off I make no apologies for the simple model I have chosen to use. More complete lifecycles have been modelled, for example this one by David Pollard which is a more comprehensive view of the creative process, and if you want to dig deeper go read his work as it’s better than mine! However I wanted something that was visually simple and easy for people to relate to.
I will be testing my companies project against the content of this document, it should be interesting!
First off lets deal with the coloured groups, the green hexagons (subscribe, search and discuss) are ongoing activities …