New Air Canada Website Beta!
Air Canada has let a beta version of their new website slip onto their public webserver.
Enterprise 2.0?
Now the idea of "Enterprise 2.0" is starting to seep into the veins of the net. I knew that was coming!
There are two value propositions for "Enterprise 2.0" as I see it. One is an old idea, we’ve talked about a service architecture for years, and with that definition salesforce.com and others were truly the first Enterprise 2.0 applications. Perhaps not Cool2.0, but they were "2.0" in a lot of ways.
The second value space is in taking the social lessons from our rev2.0lution and applying them in the enterprise space.
flickr has always been an provoking experience for me. When I use flickr (in the limited way that I do), I always have a certain feeling of connectedness. Like i’m not the only person in the world uploading photos. I am uploading photos and downloading karma of some sort. Second Life, the epitome of time wasting and full fledged geekiness (guilty on all counts!) has that same sense of connectedness.
Enterprises don’t need our cheeky and cute RubyOnRails applications. They have security layers, integration partners, support contracts and everything else that will give you migraines (believe me).
No, there is something else they need, and they need it bad. Enterprises have bled their humans dry, they don’t need cool software, the enterprise today needs connective software. Enterprises need to stop being enterprises. The Natural World is not an Enterprise.
There was a time when humans used to work together. We all shared ideas and dreams. Now, The Office is our sick escape.
Operations keeps whipping the whip, HR keeps trying to make churn look like a lifecycle and CEOs are oblivious to it all. The cracks are starting to show.
We don’t have to look very far to see that people are unhappy. Fatter than ever, working more, less productive against the baseline, and we are responding to hollow brands more than ever.
I suspect that if we looked at the numbers, risk tolerance is down within Fortune 500 companies to the point that we are seeing innovation being outsourced.
We have a chance to build something great here. Not applications that look cool and respond quickly, companies aren’t going to pay for that any time soon.
If we could give the flickr experience to the millions who sit in their cubicles each day we just might change the world. This time, for real.
Tags: enterprise 2.0, dabbledb, web 2.0
This message has been sent from my blackberry…..
Rob found a gem from Kathy Sierra "All around us we hear the clarion call for more Innovation. All around us, we hear the need to take more risk. All around us we hear the need to navigate through the uncertainty of our chaotic present.
But what I see in response most often is a state of "Busyness" that leads to paralysis."
It reminded me of the signature that most blackberry users have. "This message was posted from my blackberry wireless device", which generally translates into "I don’t give enough of a shit about you to take the time to actually sit down and read this message carefully, and respond thoughtfully"
I hate having to boil email messages down into Blackberry-Consumable form, but I do when I know someone will read it on their BB. I have actually begun to just write emails in bullet points.
Dear S,
- I am in town on tues
- can’t meet ’till thurs
- please rspd
She’s in Kep
Laurel, my wonderful wife, has been gone for almost 2 weeks now. She is in Cambodia, in a village called Kep. In it’s heyday in the 20s, 30s and 40s as a destination for rich french and colonialist residents, Kep was home to villas and beautiful resort infrastructure. All that remains now are the burnt out shells of these former mansions and broken down fountains at major intersections. The beach is now lined with cheap seafood vendors and other, more sandy, beaches attract the rich and social. Kep, by all accounts, is no longer very wealthy, nor popular. I am sure most people who had their fond memories there, and at places like Boker Hill Station are mostly long gone.
Her diet consists mostly of (and I kid you now) various forms of Grass Soup, sometimes with Fish, sometimes not. She had a pretty serious bout of stomach illness when she first arrived, but is feeling a lot better now.
Her work consists mostly (and I may miss some of it here) of going to very remote villages (an hour or more on a scooter/moto from her already remote camp/cottage) where she is educating villagers on Tuberculosis as well as a bit of dental hygiene training.
Some of her experiences are as desperate and sad as you can imagine. A mother bringing her a child who has been sick for days or more, looking for help, but they don’t even have the money to get to an aid clinic, let alone pay for the healthcare once they get there. So the girl must just suffer, Laurel is only able to suggest Acetaminophen, which neither she nor the village has at the time, and corruption and disorganization prevent any real medication from reaching these villages and clinics (the medication is most likely sold before anyone knows about it).
Kids occasionally freak out as well, they have never seen a white person and Laurel happens to have very blond hair that stands out even more. She describes it as: The child slowly stops what he/she is doing, slowly turns, eyes getting wider, jaw dropping, eyes wider, jaw dropping more, sounds start to come from them, yes - that is a scream, kid is screaming, kid runs to mom and tells her that he/she saw a ghost.
She will take this weekend off to visit Phnom Penh, the capital of the country (and listed as one of the worst cities in the world in which to live) to see The Killing Fields.
I am proud of what she is doing, but I can’t wait until she gets back.
