Driving a Social Enterprise

The debate continues – even in the virtual world

Shikhar Agarwal — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:21:49 +0000

This morning came across an article in NYT – Virtual Estates Lead to Real-World Headaches. At the core, the article is around ‘content ownership’ in the online world. It was interesting and bizarre to see even the virtual world is replicating the real world ownership issues and in the process, creating more complexity and questions. Think for a moment - “The worth of the U.S. virtual goods market is expected to surpass $1 billion this year, according to a report released last month by analysts at Inside Virtual Goods. The global market is thought to be five or six times as much”. These are really staggering numbers so the reason why anyone should be worried about virtual world estate is easy to understand.

The content ownership has become a contentious issue with the rise of cloud computing. The proponents of the cloud computing model tend to downplay the ownership and broader privacy concerns. As the article rightly pointed out – “”By their very names — MySpace, YouTube — companies promote a sense of ownership about content that users create.” It is time to take steps to stop content privacy and hoarding and not get clouded by cloud propaganda. Let the content belong to the creator!

SharePoint Saturday, here I come again…

Shikhar Agarwal — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:32:13 +0000

I am finally done with making travel arrangements for Tampa SharePoint Saturday in 2 weeks. I am looking forward to connect with more folks in the SharePoint Community. I am also excited for another reason – Sogeti happens to have a Tampa office and I am already connected with a couple of very enthusiastic colleagues from Tampa.

Now, time to get the presentation ready for Tampa, always fun!

Update: 3rd Twin Cities SharePoint Camp

Shikhar Agarwal — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:01:29 +0000

It has been a week and so a bit late to provide ‘updates’. In this world of tweets and real time feeds, a week is ancient history. Once again, great job done by Jim Ferguson in coordinating the event and NHMN for providing the logistics. Personally, I appreciate the chance to connect with old friends and make new friends each time I attend this event.

I enjoyed presenting once again on the home turf. and thank everyone who attended for an engaging discussion and inspiring presence. Enjoy the download. I look forward to your comments and continue the conversation here and on twitter.

Ciao,

Shikhar

Twitter: @ShikharAgarwal

Just round the corner… 3rd Biannual Twin Cities SharePoint Camp

Shikhar Agarwal — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:42:34 +0000

Once again, here is your opportunity to meet fellow SharePoint enthusiasts from the Twin Cities by attending the Twin Cities SharePoint Camp (now in its 3rd version) on Saturday (19th September).

In a very short time, this event has become the premier SharePoint event in the twin cities. I have a sincere passion in both the themes I have picked up for this event (of course new content, topics and perspective) and I am excited to be again part of the event:

SharePoint Online – Getting serious with SharePoint in the Cloud
SharePoint Governance - Leverage SharePoint Governance to Drive End User Adoption

Kudos to Jim Ferguson and the team at New Horizons of Minnesota for all the effort in managing this event.

Live from Copenhagen…

Shikhar Agarwal — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 07:56:59 +0000

As I write this, I am sitting in the speakers lounge at the 1st SharePoint Saturday in Europe. I am delighted to be part of this historic event. A big personal reason of coming here was to see and hear first hand the SharePoint community on the other side of the pond. I have worked with clients with offices in Europe but always wondered about true SharePoint enthusiasts.

You cannot judge a book by its cover nevertheless, I find the session titles very interesting and in some cases, even intriguing. On a different note, the weather is just gorgeous here in Copenhagen and even then, the event kickoff was standing room only. So, I figure, there are more crazy folks out there than just me.

The case for Governance in Enterprise Social Computing

Shikhar Agarwal — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 22:47:09 +0000

IT Governance has been cited as one of Top 10 CIO management problem area in the leading analyst firm’s annual CIO survey and this distinction has been repeated for 5 years. This simple fact speaks volumes about the complexity that surrounds IT Governance which traditionally covers a set of IT management policies that help facilitate the effective use of IT applications within the enterprise.

The social computing applications by nature are very flexible and adaptable since we all collaborate and socialize very differently even within the context of a single enterprise. Really, one size does not fit all. The very notion that you need ‘Governance’ to better use a tool touted for ‘ease of use’ creates questions and confusion. It is not surprising that many clients I have come across in the last few years that not spend time on Governance. Yet, just a little effort can get you a long way.

Given this context, I am looking forward to my presentation next week in Copenhagen on Governance and SharePoint. I am sure (like each instance before), it will be a great conversation and exchange of ideas!

‘Kindle Fiasco’ – The Story Continues

Shikhar Agarwal — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 19:25:49 +0000

The ripple effect of Kindle Fiasco seems to continue unabated – a class action lawsuit was filed against Amazon.com. It was expected so probably not surprising but rather unfortunate.

One of the affected Kindle reader is quoted – “I thought that once purchased, the books were mine”. Kindle did something terribly wrong but the digital content ownership is a tricky issue and hopefully is not trivialized nor minimized. The rapid explosion of cloud computing is creating the same or even more complex problems within the corporate world. So, while the consumer world gets lot of media attention, the solution has to be universal and applicable to all cloud computing models.

What do you think of this ‘Kindle Fiasco’ and what will be the remifications of this event on broader cloud computing?

Cloud under the Microsope

Shikhar Agarwal — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 03:14:21 +0000

I had just completed writing a blog a few days ago that I came across a timely Op-Ed article in the NYT. The article goes beyond the ‘Kindle fiasco’ at Amazon. It touched upon the ‘Twitter Hack’ and even the monitoring of the Chinese version of Skype by the Chinese government. Quoting the article, “The cloud, however, comes with real dangers.” So, a few incidents was all it took to put cloud computing under the microscope?

This sudden questioning of cloud computing by the media is rather interesting. If you are using “free” services to store data (specially by upcoming or unknown service providers), should you not have been worried all along? If usability and accessibility were the only two considerations ever while deciding an application to store data, of course it makes sense to store data on-line and then access it anywhere and at anytime. However, other considerations like data protection and data ownership/privacy of a service are equally if not more important. Information in the cloud deserves and demands overhaul of the current information laws.

Data Protection: Think it this way – you save money in the bank knowing that the federal government (FDIC) insures the savings and even if a bank goes down (which by now we all know they easily can), your money is protected and recoverable. If the cloud computing has to have a viable and sustainable future (beyond the IT poster child status of today), we need something similar – a guarantee that your data is protected – no matter what. If data is information and information is power, certainly it should be worth protecting. Using financially sound vendors like Microsoft or Google contains the risk to an extent but certainly not eliminate it.
Data Ownership/Privacy: Enough has been written about this, but never again, a service like Amazon should be able to go overnight and delete books (even those that were owned by you). I see it no different than Barnes & Noble walking into my house and taking away a purchased copy from my library. If you sell something by mistake, you have a right to recall but not snatch. The deletion of content is rather frightening when you imagine the form of censorship it could bring in the future.

These issues are complex but a solution is possible with some political will and industry support. If done timely, it will ensure long term viability of cloud computing solutions. The argument to do nothing will simply result in unhappy consumers and lost data, of course.

Can xRM PaaS as LEGO?

Shikhar Agarwal — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:42:42 +0000

Looking at the emerging CRM landscape, one trend is gathering a lot of ‘force’ – using CRM as an application platform. Salesforce.com calls Force.com as a service that lets you build any application, any database, any logic—and run it all on demand on salesforce.com’s trusted, secure infrastructure. A tall order one must add but a model of promise. Microsoft has a less ambitious but probably more realistic approach. Known in the community as xRM, in the recent Worldwide Partner Conference, there was a lot buzz around it.

Personally, I see xRM or Platform as a Service more of a strategy – why build everything from scratch when you have so many resuseable pieces. Think LEGO – by using same building blocks, you can build different objects.

On a funnier note, watch out this cool xRM video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yru5CkANOKA). Yes, ‘Clown Management’ might sound funny to most of us but if you can manage a clown, you can manage anyone. The question remains… what good is a managed clown?

Who Owns My Cloud?

Shikhar Agarwal — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 23:36:57 +0000

A lot is being made of Amazon’s move on Friday to delete from customers Kindle devices certain titles. An article on Yahoo Tech! declares “It’s easy to see their (customer’s) side of the argument. Once paid for, no book should ever be deleted. Period”. So, basically, if you purchase a book even on Kindle, the ownership should be just like a physical book purchase – so goes the argument. The problem however is Kindle is a service and just like any service has certain terms of service. It seems like, Amazon’s right to delete content is outlined in the Kindle terms of service! You can argue it is unethical but certainly not illegal. The devil, as always, lies in the details.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with CIO (back in 2003) about certain cloud application the CIO was looking at. This CIO was very interested in moving the company into cloud applications and willing to take typical risks associated with an early mover. In the end, the CIO stayed away from the cloud application for one main reason – the lack of ownership of content created in the cloud.

This was back in 2003 and one could argue – there are better service terms in place today. However, as the Amazon story reminds us, the cloud is still an evolving landscape that is not yet standardized. In all the buzz about cloud computing, it is very easy to get carried away and lose sight of the fact that when all said and done, cloud computing is a service based on certain ‘terms of service’. After all these years, it is still important for a CIO to be able to answer the question – Who Owns My Cloud?