Aggregation Types

Great article in Wall Street Journal - Information Wants to Be Expensive (found via Big Dog Little Dog) suggests that more people should be charging for content online. There was definitely some good points about what people will pay for:

People are happy to pay for news and information however it's delivered, but only if it has real, differentiated value. Traders must have their Bloomberg or Thomson Reuters terminal. Lawyers wouldn't go to court without accessing the Lexis or West online service.
...
For years, publishers and editors have asked the wrong question: Will people pay to access my newspaper content on the Web? The right question is: What kind of journalism can my staff produce that is different and valuable enough that people will pay for it online?
...
American Lawyer founder Steven Brill argues that "local newspapers are the best brands, and people will pay a small amount to get information -- whether it be a zoning board or a Little League game -- that they can't get anywhere else."

So people will pay for differentiated, quality content that they can't get anywhere else.

Journalists as Human Aggregators

As part of working on Topic Hubs, I've come to realize that there's a lot of very high quality content already out there. It's free. But there's friction finding it, organizing it and making sense of it.

Many of the people who write the blogs who are included in Topic Hubs are the same people who are being interviewed by Journalists for articles. Take a look at the recent hub around Electric Vehicles. This includes folks like Chris Paine - Who Killed the Electric Car - who is regularly interviewed. In thinking about this, I realized that:

Journalists are human aggregators.

They go look at the information, often in areas they don't understand that deeply and pull it together into a meaningful piece. They are quite good at this aggregation role. And no current automation is able to produce as high a quality result as a good journalist. But ...

The information behind the article that a journalist produces is already available for free somewhere.

There are cases (the local little league game) where no one else has captured that information or where the journalist truly creates something new. But it's like the old adage ...

In order to bake a cake from scratch, you first have to create the universe.

It's pretty rare to be working on truly new, differentiated, high value content. Most of what we work with are derivatives. I think of everything I'm writing now as being new - because it's new to me - but I'm sure that there's discussion of all of these issues out there somewhere.

Aggregation

It's pretty rare when I disagree with Stephen Downes, see Stephen Downes is Wrong. But he left a comment on my Topic Hubs post:

Topic hubs are not the way forward. Focus on being a network, not being spikey.

I found this to be quite interesting. I think of Stephen as being one of the biggest topic hubs out there. His OLDaily is Stephen doing amazing things by finding interesting articles and tagging them; he also has technology that pulls it together and organizes it. This helps to make sense of a large network of bloggers and other information sources and organize it for consumption by folks like me who are not going to subscribe to all of those blogs individually. He also helps to organize the information for you via tags that allow you to find stuff on topics at a later time.

I think that Stephen provides tremendous value on top of a network (and is part of the network himself). And I guess I think of him as a human-centric aggregator. Maybe a better term is provided by Robin Good - he calls this - NewsMastering.

Newsmastering is the process by which a human being identifies, aggregates, hand-picks, edits and republishes a highly-focused, thematic news via RSS.

It's interesting to see the term "human being" - both human and singular.

I believe that Topic Hubs like eLearning Learning, Mobile Learning, Informal Learning Flow, Communities and Networks Connection provide a similar kind of value as Stephen and Robin - but attack it differently. In this case, social signals (human activity across the network) surface posts such as shown in eLearning Learning Hot List Feb 1-14, Work Literacy Hot List - Early February, Hot List from the Communities & Networks Connection, Mobile Learning Hot List.

Each of them combines human decision making about what should be brought in (Thanks Judy, Nancy, Jay) and social signals, activities across the network - thanks everyone!, to determine what's likely good stuff. This relies much more on automation and doesn't have the editorial that Stephen or Robin provide. There certainly is a difference when you have a single individual (or small group) providing editorial control. Robin puts it this way:

The real added value is specifically in the ability of the newsmaster to manually pick the very best and most relevant stories for its target audience.

You can argue that none of the information provided by a Topic Hub is new. However, it is new in that it provides value on top of existing information much like Stephen's OL Daily and a journalists article. They use different methods to surface what's interesting or relevant. They create additional information and structure on top. And there's value in that additional information and structure.

Aggregation Types

As I'm thinking about this, there's likely a few different forms of aggregation implied by looking at systems like Social Media Today, OLDaily, Communities and Networks Connection, Techmeme, Sphinn and Digg.

• Centralized content or distributed content. Do they pull all the content into the central site or leave it distributed on the original source?
• Organization and Access - how do they organize the content. Human tagging? Automated? How do you access it?
  
• Editorial Distribution - Single person, small group or widely distributed control of what comes in and what is best?
  

Each of the different approaches has a reason and rational. I look forward to trying to figure out what makes sense in what situations.

Informix Warehouse feature

IBM has announced today the availability of Informix Warehouse Feature v11.50.
This is a set of tools that help customers by taking advantage of their Informix infra-structure in order to transform operational data into information useful for business optimization.
This bundle includes the SQL Warehouse component which offers the following:

• SQW Warehouse Design Studio and SQW Client for data modeling, schema design, data transformation design, and data flow design
• SQW Warehouse Server with Administration Console to schedule and manage data flows
• SQL Warehouse runtime to perform data transformation within the IDS data server

The infrastructure specified can be integrated with business intelligence tools like Cognos (now part of the IBM Software portfolio), and Optim (former Princeton Softech) for management of data growth, and ETL tools like Information Server (former Ascential Datastage).
This feature is available for Informix Dynamic Server v11.50.xC3.

If you're an Informix customer, or if you've been paying attention to the traditional positioning of Informix as an OLTP database you may wonder how this fits the traditional Informix usage.
Well, this does not mean that Informix became the perfect choice for a large scale enterprise level data warehouse. But the fact is, a lot of Informix customers need to extract more information from the data they manage in their Informix instances. Information organized in a different manner. Not in the usual OLTP transaction oriented schema. Many of this customers can take advantage of their existing infra-structure to build some data-warehouse functionality into their information systems. This package attempts to provide them with some tools that can help setup these new capabilities.
Although Informix is not specially oriented into the data-warehouse usage, it includes a lot of functionality that can help:

• Dynamic Scalable Architecture (DSA)
  The internal engine arquitechture permits scalability and excelent performance. It also allows for extremely efficient usage of your hardware
• Decision Support Queries
  IDS has several paremeters that control the type of queries made in a datawarehouse type environment (decision support queries). You can control resourses like memory, number of parallel scans etc. Also, this type of queries are run in parts that can run concurrently (scans, sorts, ortders etc.)
• Read ahead capabilities and light scans
  This allow for more efficient batch reads like the ones ocurring in big tables sequential scans
• Configurable page sizes
  This can help improve performance for large batch reads/writes
• High performance loader
  A very efficient way to load data into your tables
  
• Flexible table fragmentation
  Can be used for data lifecycle management, parallel queries, fragment elimination in queries etc.

And what about the future? Well, if you take a look at the recent webcast about the IDS roadmap you can see features like "automatic storage provisioning", "warehouse", "external table support" (currently possible, but not built in). In a very near future, and accordingly to the early validation program, IDS 11.50.xC4 will support table compression.
So, there are old features, new features, and better integration between Informix and other IBM products that can make it a good choice to build a BI supporting structure.

You can find more information about this announcement in the following resources:

• The Informix Warehouse Feature announcement
• The Informix Warehouse Feature installation guide (at IDS 11.50 Infocenter)
• The Informix Warehouse Information page on IDS 11.50 Infocenter
  

Conversation Searches

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Social Grid Follow-up

Last week I did a webinar with Mark Sylvester of Intronetworks - Tapping the Social Grid. There's a recording available here.

The crux of the talk was:

• Why being able to tap into the social grid is important for concept workers.
• A few of the tools and methods I use to tap into the social grid.
  

Unfortunately, chat was not enabled during the session, but they did have the ability for attendees to ask questions. Somehow, like other attendees, I couldn't see the questions. It made things feel a little disconnect. I also couldn't see poll results, but Mark did a great job of letting us know what was happening in polls and asking questions during the session. He also sent me all the questions so I could think about them.

In terms of the presentation, most of the presentation, I've discussed before in various places:

• Crowdsourcing in the Small
• King William's College - General Knowledge Paper and Crowdsourcing - Know Where You Can Find Anything
• Concept Workers - post information work and workers
• Evaluating Performance of Concept Workers - realities of how concept workers are evaluated by managers who know less about the answer than the concept worker themselves
  
• Value from Social Media - aspect of work problems that are classically hard to fully address with search, i.e., where search stops and other solutions need to begin.
• Leveraging Networks is Key Skill and the most important Knowledge Worker Skill Gap.
• Tools and Methods for Networks and Communities - Discusses specific tools and methods for using Networks and Communities as part of Knowledge Work.
• Twitter as Personal Work and Learning Tool
• My LinkedIn Open Connection Approach - Treating LinkedIn like a massive, virtual cocktail party.
  

There's a lot there, so if you were going to choose two, probably Crowdsourcing in the Small and Tools and Methods for Networks and Communities would be the two.

Other Ways to Tap into the Social Grid

In the session, I discussed the use of LinkedIn, Twitter and Blogging as my primary tools for tapping into the social grid. I asked via Twitter and in the session for other tools/methods that people use for Tapping into Your Social Grid.

Here was the original tweet:

• tonykarrer: Please help - online session going now: How (other than twitter) do you Tap Your Social Grid to get help with your problems? #tysg

Responses:

• SocialHound: @tonykarrer I also use twitter to comment on topics that I have knowledge in to broaden my scope of netwokers
• SocialHound: @tonykarrer I use twitter to reach out to people with knowledge about things I don't understand
• TamiSchiller: @tonykarrer #tysg LinkedIn, various Ning groups and industry specific organizations.
• ranellem: @tonykarrer I've found old friends via Facebook that have become professional contacts as well.
• gammill: @tonykarrer I use facebook for 'normal people' market research and LinkedIn for BD and hiring #tysg
• annemscott: @tonykarrer I also use Facebook (comments on status) and Facebook Groups for help. #tysg
  
• prawsthorne: @tonykarrer I also use Skype, MSN, Google Chat, Google groups, Wiki talk pages to tap my social grid. I believe tap is the keyword
• flaviofusuma: @tonykarrer Forums, Email, Linkedin. #tysg
  
• EmmaWho: @tonykarrer facebook groups

• cammybean: @tonykarrer Blogging. Email. Facebook. Tools for quickly getting the question out there. #tysg
• assistivetek: @tonykarrer I rely on Skype and LinkedIn to reach out to others as well as my blog
• moehlert: @tonykarrer #tysg Yammer. Blogging. Facebook. Linkedin. They're all just tools to build relationships between people and people and data

From participants.

• Facebook
• Ning
• Blogs
  
• Social Bookmarking (delicious and Diigo)
• Plaxo
• Facebook pages for organizations/businesses
• LinkedIn pages for organizations/businesses
• WordPress blog as part of business website
• Photosharing sites - smugmug and flickr
  
• youtube
• email
• MySpace
• Bebo
• Public speaking
• Yammer
• company tools of tagging, sharing bookmarks, web profiles
• Meetup
• IRC
• Comments in blogs
• Forums
• Virtual Book Club
  
• Slideshare
• slideshare - leads me to someone's blog or website
• archived webinars - lead me to someone's blog or website
• Movie recommendations on NetFlix
  

When you think about it, there are a ton of other recommendation or social grid type things out there that we tap into without thinking about them as tapping the social grid.

For more discussions on networking and LinkedIn see Networking Events in Los Angeles and Southern California, Secret for Networking at Events – Prenetworking, Pre-network with LinkedIn, Local Event Organizers Need to Adopt Social Media.

And for information that's more focused on service professionals such as accountants, attorneys, consultants, take a look at Social Media for Service Professionals and Social Media to Build Reputation and Reach Prospects – More Ideas.

See also:

• Tools and Methods for Networks and Communities
• Network Feedback

Questions and Thoughts

The following are questions or comments from the audience.

Q: If you have unique content for a specific area of business, like brand marketers, is a group on LinkedIn better than creation of your own business to business network?

To me, LinkedIn is very limited in it's ability to set up communities. Yes, you can create a group. And then you have threaded discussions. However, when we just did this for the LA CTO Forum, we created a LinkedIn group so that members could search profiles and created a private Ning community for discussions, events, and communication.

The question mentions "unique content" ... I often find that Ning isn't that great for specialized content. I'd need to know more to understand what would work for the particular situation.

Q: Do you remember who/what organization researched memory and found that those under the age of 27 remember less than older folks? I really like this idea and would like to read this research.

Couple of places that discuss adaptation of memory and technology

• Memorizing Facts
• Better Memory

In Your Outboard Brain Knows All, Clive Thompson talks about how our need to remember is changing.

Neuroscientist Ian Robertson polled 3,000 people and found that the younger ones were less able than their elders to recall standard personal info. When Robertson asked his subjects to tell them a relative's birth date, 87 percent of respondents over age 50 could recite it, while less than 40 percent of those under 30 could do so. And when he asked them their own phone number, fully one-third of the youngsters drew a blank. They had to whip out their handsets to look it up.

Q: Is what we consider ""Collaboration & Networking"" in the enterprise is what academia calls ""Plagiarism""?

Two articles (1, 2) that discuss the case of a Facebook study group that was considered cheating when other study groups are okay.

This is a really challenging issue!

Q: what's a "hash tag"?
Q: what's "#tysg" he typed in twitter search box

http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Hashtags

#tysg - It wasn't really a hash tag, but close enough. It was a tag that I put in my original twitter post that allows me to find related posts.

Q: Curious--when he does a follow-up conversation w/ people on linkedin that respond to his inquiries, as in the ex. he showed, do people expect to be paid for their consulting time? or does it depend on the extent of the consultation?

I've never had someone who accepted a request for a 30 minute conversations ask to be paid for that conversation. I have talked to a few consultants who clearly were not going to tell me anything of interest without being paid. But that is rare - 5% or less. Obviously, after a first call people (including me) might suggest an engagement is in order to dive into more detail.

Q: Do you feel LinkedIn Answers is as valuable for introducing a completely new technology vs. something that people are familiar with?

I'm not as familiar with using LinkedIn as a marketing / sales tool, but I use it all the time as a market research tool. It certainly is good at reaching influencers. But I have to be honest and say that I get lots of LinkedIn requests to look at someone's new product in order to try to get me to blog about the product. I generally am not a super early adopter so I'm less likely to dive in with a new tool. Plus there's just a lot of those requests. My guess is that there are others who would be more likely to dive in if it's something interesting. Probably the best approach is to be even earlier and truly be asking for expertise - where do we fit in the market.

Q: How to you handle negative comments on Linked in or other SN sites?

I've not dealt with negative comments on LinkedIn. Do you mean in Q&A and discussions? I've found it to be pretty civil as compared to threaded discussions in other places. Maybe because people want to look good.

For a better answer, I would go to:

Communities and Networks Connection - Negative Comments

Q: Will the questions be open to everyone in LinkedIn or is it only open to those in your category or having connections?

I believe you can limit it, but normally you would use a message instead if you wanted to limit the distribution. In my mind, the question is a public mechanism. Messages are the private mechanism. Or maybe that's just how I use it.

Q: I often hear people say they are concerned about potential vandalism in user-created content. I suggest that they have a recruiting problem.

I agree. Or you could think of this as an opportunity for natural selection. A bit like the cartoon that I really enjoyed from Dilbert (sorry I'm repeating it, but it's too good to pass up).



Q: Do you ever feel too "spread out" between LinkedIn, Facebook, blogging, twittering, etc.?

Fantastic question. And yes. I'm constantly evaluating where I'm going to focus. I'm still somewhat unsure about Twitter and Facebook. They are definitely secondary mechanisms as compared to LinkedIn for me. Blogging is a different animal.

I think everyone has to evaluate what works for them. But you need to find the tools and methods that work for you.

Q: How is Twittering more effective than Facebook status updates

They are very similar. In fact, many of my updates I post to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn via Ping.fm. That said, because Facebook I generally am doing more social things, I'm not going to mention every blog post. People following me on Twitter are choosing to listen in and are not expecting a mutual friend. So, the dynamic is a little bit different.

Wow, not the best answer - can someone explain this better?

Q: I hear a clear delineation between the social and professional uses of these sites, but with them all so available and searchable... can they really stay that separate?

I'm sorry if I suggested that there was any such delineation, especially on something like Facebook. I have a tendency to mix business and fun. Most people find this in their social networks (both in-person and online). LinkedIn has a tendency to be more directed and professional - but there's still a "social" side to it.

Q: So are people helping you with customer situations for free? Is this stuff they'd normally get paid to do? Are they doing it because you'll mention them on your blog?

Free yes. Most of us consultants do initial discussions for free. Some consultants are very concerned about giving anything away. For me, if I can help you in 30 minutes, it's not worth trying to sell you a consulting engagement. And I believe that's most people out there. I should also mention that I'm often not talking to consultants.

The "mention me in your blog" is normally only with people who seek a conversation with me ... not when I'm seeking a conversation. In fact, they might have the opposite concern - is he going to blog about what I'm saying?

I will say that being approached by people who are looking to get their name in my blog is a bit problematic.

Q: Why does tony prefer linkedin to twitter?

Twitter is an open conversation. It's great for quick hit questions with nearly real-time response. It's a good way to stay connected with people. It's much more social than LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is much more directed. For me, it's there to create the right conversations. I might broadcast a need on Twitter for a certain kind of conversation. But, I'm much more likely to go see who I know or who I can reach who will have expertise. A lot of the folks who follow me on twitter are people I'm linked to.

Hold it, is that true? I'm going to send a twitter message right now see if I can find out.

The response so far has that about 2/3 of the people following me on Twitter are connections on LinkedIn. So, there's quite a few people who I might be able to reach with a tweet that I would not reach via searching on LinkedIn. There's also a larger number who I reach through my blog. As well, discussions on groups and other places can reach out beyond your connections.

Q: Are there tools for doing online brainstorming with people in different locations.

I mentioned the great session with Robin Good using MindMeister. More on this ...

• Real-Time Collaborative Editing
  
• Remote Collaboration

Q: Define ""Open Networker""

See: My LinkedIn Connection Approach

Q: Is LinkedIn mainly for professional purposes only? That is what I have seen in my limited look at it a while back.

Yes it's definitely professionally oriented. Facebook is far more social.

Q: We use a Virtual Book Club to share ideas and solve problems. What are your thoughts?

Love the idea.

Q: How about calling it micro crowdsourcing?

I like the term. Not 100% sold.

Q: Do you feel Linkedin is best suited for a certain age group?

I'm going to guess that it skews older. Certainly older than Facebook. The cultural norms on LinkedIn are similar to networking norms in real life so I think it will feel better to an older audience.

These are guesses, does anyone have data to back this up?

Q: As a business owner, I have concern about employee abuse, i.e. loss of productivity. Social networking proponents say productivity can actually increase. I have doubts. What's your opinion?

We discussed this in the session. Employees definitely need to be coached to not abuse their time at work on things like Facebook. LinkedIn I would have far less concern. Although be aware that everyone on LinkedIn is somewhat seen as a passive job seeker. Actually, everyone is a passive job seeker even if they aren't on LinkedIn.

Q: Tony, your comment on blogging that ""writing forces learning"" is another way of demonstrating the old aphorism that ""teaching something is the best way to learn it.""

Well said!

Q: What are the attributes of very successful communities...(long answer expected!)

Wow, this is way too big for me. You might start with:

• Successful Communities
• Community and Community Building

Q: Is NING used more for professional or for private/social?

Both

Q: how valuable do you find the groups in LinkedIn?

It's funny, because I find value in the groups in a different way than I expected. I definitely get value from a broader searching capability. I expected that. But, I didn't expect to meet a lot of interesting people through discussions. I never took the opportunity in forums in the past to meet members. Because I'm so used to 30 minute conversations as a result on LinkedIn, I naturally do that with folks who are saying interesting things in LinkedIn groups.

I would say that groups are way lower value than being able to search for expertise.

Q: What does it mean that Tony's blog is his outboard brain?

Basically, I forget details of stuff all the time. And so I look back at my blog to find out what I used to think about a topic.

Q: How much time do you spend in LinkedIn weekly?

I've not really thought about it. When I get an email from someone or run into them on a web site, I look at their profile - maybe 30 minutes a week doing that. And then my use is heavily dependent on what I'm working on. I would guess it averages an hour a week. However, I would guess that I have about 4, 30 minute conversations a week as a result of LinkedIn. Of course, all of this is really work, and extremely high value work.

Q: How would you rate Twitter for tapping the social grid?

I'm still not 100% sold, but it's growing on me. If you are relatively new to all of this, start by creating 30-minute conversations on LinkedIn.

Q: Do you see corporations using LinkedIn Groups for employees to seek mentors/coaches within their organization?

I don't have enough data points on this. Can someone else weigh in?

Q: Any comments on Nour's book: Relationship currency?

I'm afraid I'm only vaguely familiar with it. Thanks for the pointer. Oh, and he's a 2nd level connection and a fairly open networker on LinkedIn.

Q: will it be possible to save the ""templates""

The template that is being asked about is what my message generally looks like when I reach out to someone via LinkedIn.

It's almost always an expertise request.

Hi ,

I'm hoping you'll be open to a brief conversation. From your profile you have a great background and it seems like you'll have lots of thoughts around my issues.

I'm working on XXX.

I've spent a fair bit of time researching and have been finding YYY.

I'd like to set a time to discuss this with you and get your thoughts.

----

It's critical that your question show you aren't still at square one. If you come and ask me - I need help selecting an authoring tool... I may or may not be interested in talking to you. If you tell me that you are debating this tool vs. that tool and are particularly thinking about reusability - now I am likely much more interested.

Q: Does LinkedIn offer any sort of rating system to vet the value of an individual's advice?

During the session, I botched my answer to this question - so luckily two people came to my rescue....

Q: LinkedIn Answers does offer the opportunity to rate based answers which is indirectly a rating system.
Q: But you could RECOMMEND someone on LinkedIn for those who's advice has been great

I would add that in "real life" you don't get much help in vetting someone's advice either.

Q: ""Bedstefar"" is Grand Dad in english
Q: Christian IX, king of Denmark

Okay now I wish everyone could have seen these in the chat! That's pretty dang good whoever typed this in. I'm just not going to tell anyone how this relates to anything. ;)

Q: How do you work with a management/political culture that states “my ideas, right or wrong”?

I'm not 100% sure what this related to in the presentation. Most of the time, I'm looking for input, answers, outside the box thinking that I can't get internally. If your culture doesn't want to hear what other people think - hmmm - What was I saying about passive job seeking? Actually, I believe LinkedIn is pretty good for active job seeking as well.

Q: People are not only asking questions, but looking for like minded people who connect with for future reference in searching Q&A

Great point.

Q: So search engines (social networks) tend to lessen the need for individual memory?

Yes - that's exactly true. See Better Memory.

Q: I'm new to introNetworks via LinkedIn discussion grp invite. So, how does introNetworks compare?

Mark was just getting into this. LinkedIn is much more keyword, profile search across a very large network. introNetworks is generally a smaller group (although they can be pretty large) and uses a more limited set of keywords to do matching of people. Having been the CTO for eHarmony at its start - I think of introNetworks as the eHarmony for business-social networking with given groups of people.

My challenge with introNetworks and other social networking tools is that unless I have a specific problem I'm trying to accomplish or a plan for how to connect, then I just end up swimming around. See: Social Conference Tools - Expect Poor Results. Still, I'm a big believer in Prenetworking before you go to an event - find people you should connect with at the event. And, I'm still learning about all of this.

SharePoint Update

SharePoint in Corporate Learning

One of the hardest things for me to find are good examples of how people are really using web 2.0 inside organizations. This is a great opportunity to hear lots of examples of what they are doing with SharePoint around Corporate Learning in a wide variety of organizations.

Live Sessions:

• Tuesday March 10, 8 - 10 AM Pacific
• Thursday March 12, 8 - 9 AM Pacific

Community discussion will occur in between.

Register Here. If you are interested in attending, go to the Learn Trends Ning Site and sign-up. Make sure you register for the event. We will make announcements through that site.

	Michael Palko Solution Education Manager The Healthcare Business of Thomson Reuters	Michael will talk about how he's using SharePoint to manage The Training Space, an internal learning community that connects and "cross pollinates" teams. Community members contribute their own unique experience and draw from the group’s collective intelligence using all the tools that web 2.0 has to offer.
	Allison Anderson Manager Leadership Learning Environments Intel	Using SharePoint as a one-stop-stop for our Career Development instructors around the globe, to access the tools and resources they need. Instructors teach in pairs, so this site helps them find partners around the globe. Includes a corporate calendar to show where the workshop is taught worldwide, and a discussion board for sharing best-known-methods. We’ll talk about what has worked… and what has not.
	Cindi Wiggin Manager Leadership Learning Environments Intel
	Tom Smith Faculty of Education Technology, Higher Colleges of Technology, Abu Dhabi Women's College	SharePoint and its development in Staff Training in an overseas tertiary college environment
	Michael Glazer Dean Burson-Marsteller University	Sharing examples of social learning features in a training program. How the university is beginning to make connections between training collaboration and knowledge-sharing.
	Andrew Smith Learning Technology Specialist Tele-Atlas	How Tele-Atlas uses SharePoint as a platform for informal learning.
	Celia Bohle Advanced Learning TEchnologies Program Manager HP	SharePoint for a Marketing Online Learning Community
	Kevin Kussman IPG Go-To-Market Learning and Development HP
	Dominika Merzenich Workforce Development Specialist/IPG Go-To-Market Learning and Development HP
	Anne Adrian Associate Director, ACES-Ag IT, Auburn Extension	Internal and External use of SharePoint with Feeds, searches, aggregatred feeds. Anne will describe how SharePoint is used and impl;emented to prduce public blogs and web sites based on feeds from categories and locations. She will also describe how SharePoint internal collaboration sites are used and the value of authnticated searches in SharePoint.
	Brian Dusablon Performance Consultant Administaff	The role of SharePoint in our onboarding process including: early access, easy to find key information, well of resources and anniversary profiles. The role of SharePoint in New Supervisor Orientation including: Training programs, Templates and guides and Testimonials.

Other possible participants are from Valvoline/Ashland and Microsoft Learning.

FUD for thought

If you're a frequent visitor here or to any other Informix related post, there are good chances you also check the Informix usenet group. If you don't know what I'm writing about you can check it at http://groups.google.pt/group/comp.databases.informix?hl=en.

I'm a usual reader and poster on that group, and recently one of the topics got my attention. I think it deserves a bit of our time in order to understand a few things...
One person posted a message on the group, asking for an "IBM 10 year plan for Informix". The reason he needs it, as far as the post says, relates to the fact that, allegedly, a sales representative from an IBM competitor had that for it's database, and the consultants were saying IBM hadn't a similar documented plan for Informix.

Let me tell you that usually, the technical posts are more participated than the "commercial oriented" ones. But in this case we could see very quick answers from IBM business partners, IBM Informix architects and even from Oracle employees... All of them agreed on something: Neither IBM, or Oracle (and probably not any other software vendor) has a plan for 10 years. And why not? Well, simply because in 10 years everything can change in the IT industry. New trends, new needs, new paradigms. So what would be the point in making a plan that would almost for sure be changed in the middle?
This leads us back to the initial situation... so why would someone try to raise Fears, Uncertainty and Doubts (FUD) about IBM and Informix? The simple answer, provided by some, was simply because it's a usual sales tactic when the customer is leaning towards the competition.
Why not use technical or other commercial arguments in that situation? Probably because it's harder, or simply because there are no other arguments strong enough...
This simple situation, accordingly to some of the posters is relatively usual. I've seen it happen, or at least I've seen the effect of them, when people that are simply not informed ask me if IBM is trying to move Informix customers to DB2. So, let me try to raise a few questions and propose some answers:

1. Does IBM have a plan for Informix?
   Yes. You can check a roadmap in a recent presentation which you can access at:
   http://www.ibm.com/informix/webcasts
2. Does IBM have a ten year plan for Informix?
   No. It doesn't have a ten year plan for any product, simply because it's not realist. If such a plan existed it would ignore all the future changes, trends and shifts in the IT industry.
   On the other hand, IBM has nearly a ten year past with Informix. Think about that when you read the next questions
3. Has Informix been improved in the hands of IBM?
   Sure. IDS releases since 9.4 have seen done by IBM. I prefer to exclude 9.40 because it happened almost immediately after the acquisition, so the development phase was done by Informix Corporation. But think about IDS 10, IDS 11 and IDS 11.5. Think about all the new features. Think about MACH 11. Think about all the improvements in security (LBAC, default roles, SSL, single sign on, column level encryption, encryption expert, encrypted replication, PAM authentication...). Think about compression (11.50.xC4 as already announced in the early validation program). Think about unicode. Think about common client (DRDA). Think about performance (shared statement cache, non-blocking checkpoints, index self join, CPUVP cache, Direct I/O...). Think about Open Admin Tool. Think about all the new features in enterprise replication. Think about dynamic SQL in stored procedures. Think about ontape and OnBAR improvements. Think about SQL trace. Think about SQL admin API. Think about DB scheduler...
4. Does IBM talk about Informix?
   Yes. Have you noticed the recent announcements about Informix availability in the "cloud"? Have you noticed that we have regular webcasts? Have you read all the IBM redbooks about Informix? Have you been to any of the proof of technology events all around the globe? Have you noticed what are the "brands" on the bottom of the 2009 EMEA IOD Conference page?
   
5. Did Informix loose any of it's strengths in the hands of IBM?
   No... It's still stable, fast, easy to setup and manage, and "light" (both in installation size and in resource consuption)
6. Is it harder to upgrade than before?
   No... it's still the same process to move from IDS 7.31 to IDS 11.50 as it was from 7.30 to 7.31. Simple and quick...
7. Is it more expensive?
   No. It's still competitive. You get more features included on the base price than in most of it's competition. And you can get a fair deal if you run it in virtualized environments.
   
8. Do we have more or less information about Informix?
   More. Currently we have a lot of blogs and sites with information about Informix. The IBM site, although complex, has all the manuals, product lifecyle, product downloads etc.
9. It it harder to test Informix?
   No. You can download a developer version from the IBM site. You can even download a virtual appliance with the software and some demos (MACH 11 for example)
10. Did we loose Informix technical support quality?
    No. In recent surveys, Informix customer satisfaction was proven to be high. You don't get that with lousy technical support.
11. Do we still have a great international user group?
    Yes! IIUG continues to do a terrific job. Even in the current difficult times, IIUG continues to promote Informix and works closely with IBM. Just check some recent announcements, the IIUG 2009 user conference, the surveys, the monthly insider etc.
    
12. What about Informix training?
    IBM has been updating the Informix training courses. I had the pleasure to try some of them in the ILO (Instructor Led Online) environment, so I can assure that the new features are covered in the courses.

So... what the mentioned comp.databases.informix thread talked about is FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). What I exposed above are verifiable facts. The decison between the two should be taken by customers. Do you prefer to trust those who have been providing good, fast, stable, scalable and easy to manage software, or do you prefer to trust those who try to scare you with statements that are contradicted by facts and an history of almost 10 years?

Regards.

Online Conference

Two of my eLearning Predictions for 2009 were:

#5 - Virtual Classroom Tipping Point

... we've reached a point where virtual classroom training is no longer seen as inherently inferior and a lower value ... 2009 will be the year when we realize that we should be justifying any in-person training.

#11 - Micro Virtual Conferences

The move towards acceptance of virtual classroom means ... acceptance of online conferences ... we won't have time to go for several days ... in between a full online conference and something that's a few sessions.

Already this year, I'm seeing a lot of this ...

And I think there's a fairly substantial implication for workplace learning organizations...

Online Conference Associated with Major In-Person Conferences

It was interesting to see that ASTD TechKnowledge offer an online conference. The experience sounds like it was okay (TK 09 Virtual Experience). They opened that up late in the process. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if they had offered it earlier. Would attendance have been even lower for in-person?

And I'm not the only one: Online conferences - the future is now.

Both talk about: great value.

Online Conference on Conferences

I was asked to participate in a recent online conference: AACE - Spaces of Interaction: An Online Conversation on Improving Traditional Conferences. The event was held purely online with sessions spaced about 6 hours apart, 3 times per day, for 3 days (9 total sessions). They were recorded. And there was a discussion group.

Think about how having it as an online conference allowed:

• Narrow focus
  
• Attend without interrupting my job.
• Get people involved who would never participate in-person in such a narrow topic.
• Organize quickly
• Low cost
  

Side note: It was somewhat ironic to hear all the discussion about how to improve "traditional conferences" while we were participating in something that was not really traditional - but was fairly effective.

New Organizers and New Designs

Now, I'm not saying that there's anything new about holding an online conference. The eLearningGuild has been doing this for years with monthly, for-fee online conferences structured around particular topics. These are held over two days with a structure very similar to in-person conferences. Part of the reason that the eLearningGuild structures their online conferences to be similar to in-person conferences to make it more obvious that it's similar and thus is worth the money.

Once you go to an online conference it suddenly allows all sorts of new conferences, new organizers and new designs to flourish.

I've really not spent a lot of time looking at different models, but it seems like there are several common design questions that come into play:

• Number of Sessions - You can go anywhere from Single Event Webinars (e.g., Tapping the Social Grid) to complete conferences with many sessions across many topics.
• Tracks - Is there a single series or do you have multiple sessions at the same time?
• Synchronous / Asynchronous - Do you design for live sessions or more for recording and viewing later with interaction pushed to discussion groups?
  
• Schedule - When in the day do you schedule your sessions?
  
• Spacing - Do you block sessions to occur back-to-back or do you leave room for discussion and work to occur in-between?
  
• Exhibitors / Sponsors - How do you integrate exhibitors and sponsors? Are there demonstration sessions?
  
• Discussion Mechanism
  
• Networking
  
• Start-up Support / Training - How do you help participants participate effectively?
  
• Conference End / Follow-on - What do you do at the end?
  

Targeted Online Conferences

When I did my online session Tapping the Social Grid - I primarily focused on establishing 1-to-1 conversations. I probably used the phrase "30 minute conversation" more than any other phrase. But what get's me excite about online conferences is that we can easily make this a many-to-many conversation.

If you look at what we are doing with SharePoint in Corporate Learning - Free Micro Virtual Conference, the reality is that I've tapped into the Social Grid to find people Using SharePoint. We are turning that into an amazing online conversation with:

• High quality speakers / participants (HP, Intel, Thomson Reuters, Administaff, ...)
  
• Focused topic
• More discussion and less presentation

We've structured it to hopefully encourage lots of sharing and discussion.

The bottom line:

I would go have each of these conversations 1-on-1 if I didn't have this way of doing it. We might as well make it many-to-many.

Implication for Workplace Learning Organizations

When you look at the dynamic here, I believe there's an incredible opportunity for workplace learning organizations to become a new kind of organizer as well. I get asked to come speak at various in-house conferences. That's generally a fairly expensive proposition. And I would guess that the number of in-person, in-house conferences is going down right now. Just a guess. ;)

Maybe you can create something much better. Create an online conference. Invite people from outside the organization who share similar issues. Invite the "experts" but reduce the costs greatly by allowing it to occur without travel. You really don't need George, Jay and I to organize these things for you.

Or do you? Literally as I'm composing this, I'm wondering if there's possibly a great new service offering here. Would you like help pulling together an online conference around a topic for your organization?

I know people who are really good at pulling together online conferences. I know how to network to get lots of interesting folks together. I'm sure there are plenty of corporate event organizers who would organize an online conference. But I sense there's something a little different here.

What do you think? Is there need among workplace learning organizations? Is there a new business here?