#HCMN HealthCamp Minnesota Kicks in to Gear

Bright and early on Saturday October 24th HealthCampMinnesota kicks off. A massive Thank You has to go to Albert Maruggi (@albertmaruggi) for organizing the event. This will be a slightly different HealthCamp Event. It will follow a similar model that was used at HealthCampNash earlier this year.

Albert has arranged a fascinating set of speakers to lead a series of panels. The objective is to stimulate discussion around HealthCare Delivery, Payments and Medical Devices. So much is up in the air as Washington debates Health Care Reform that these three themes will no doubt intersect during the camp.

One of the leading lights in Health Care Social Media - Lee Aase (@leeAase) is kicking off HealthCampMN. I am thrilled to finally meet Lee. You can follow the Twitter feed for the event using CoverItLive - embedded below - or catch the #hcmn search stream.

If you are planning to be at HealthCampMn you can contribute to the day by registering on the Wiki and updating it with your ideas and contributions. Post links to your blogs, photos and video streams. The Wiki can be reached via a bit.ly short url: http://bit.ly/hcmn_w.

Now, just because there are a series of panels arranged for this HealthCamp don't think you can just sit back passively. We want you to join in. Test the panel, ask the tough questions. Ask a question even if it seems like a dumb one. We all have different perspectives and the value of HealthCamp is in bringing those perspectives and experiences together, sharing and learning together. HealthCampMn is very much "on the record" - Take photos, capture video, blog and tweet about it. Use the #hcmn hashtag when you post content to Flickr, YouTube and elsewhere.

If there are issues that you haven't seen addressed then stay after lunch and we can create discussion groups on the fly - in true HealthCamp style.

HealthCamp is your day. Dive in. Get engaged. You are a participant and not just an attendee. Most of all - have fun. We want you to come away energized.

If you can't be there then check out the Intro to HealthCampMn on YouTube.

Finally don't forget. If you want to run a HealthCamp there are resources available at http://healthca.mp to help you do that. Or drop a comment here. I am always happy to instigate a new Healthcamp that will spread the word about Participatory Medicine.

Medicine 2.0 lands at MaRS

Medicine 2.0 kicks off today (Thursday September 17th, 2009) at the MaRS Centre in Toronto.

The Twitter feed is being captured on CoverItLive using the #Med2 hash tag.

Just like yesterday's highly successful HealthCampToronto CoverItLive will allow us to replay the Twitter stream after Twitter forgets.

HealthCampToronto and Medicine2.0 are here!

Today is HealthCampToronto (Wednesday September 16th) followed by Medicine2.0 on the 17th and 18th.@rdjfraser

This is another sold-out HealthCamp event. Congratulations have to go to Carlos Rizo and Rob Fraser (@carlosrizo and @rdjfraser) for organizing a great event. IBM is the major sponsor for this event. Thanks go to them for hosting HealthCampToronto at their offices at 120 Bloor St, Toronto.

I know that a number of prolific tweeps will be at both events including Jen McCabe, ePatientDave and David Hale. If you can't make the event be sure to follow the tweet stream. The hashtag for the event is #HCTO.

Twitter is not providing search to terms over a week old so in order to preserve the hive mind of the event we are using CoverItLive. I am including the feed in this blog as well as on the HealthCampToronto CoverItLiveFeed page. You can also follow the #HCTO rss feed indirectly via my public Google Reader Repeater page. I have setup a bit.ly link to make it easier to find: http://bit.ly/ekivemark_Repeater

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HealthCampToronto and Medicine2.0

This time next week (September 18th) I hope to be presenting about HealthCamp's at Medicine2.0 in Toronto. This is the start of a busy HealthCamp season. The only fly in the ointment is the British Embassy. Yes, I am waiting on my new passport.

Hopefully it will arrive in time so that I can head up not just for Medicine2.0 but also for HealthCampToronto on September 16th that is being organized by @carlosrizo and @rdjfraser.

You will be able to follow some of the discussions from HealthCampToronto by tuning in to the #HCTO hashtag on Twitter. Remember though that Twitter now only has a short term memory. If you want to get at that history after the event you will need to take the RSS feed and archive it. I use Google Reader for that. To help preserve the #HCTO hive mind I am rebroadcasting the RSS feed via one of my public Google Reader pages.

Toronto is shaping up to be another great HealthCamp event. If you are arriving in Toronto early for Medicine2.0 you can't afford to miss the vibrant un-conference where you get to design the agenda. It is a truly user-defined conference.

If you can't make Toronto, I hope you can make it to HealthCampSFBay that takes place on October 5th - the day before the Health 2.0 conference.

Beware - Twitter search is broken!

Something seems to be going on with Twitter Search. ...or more correctly - something is not going on at Twitter Search. Old tweets appear to have disappeared. Twitter search is broken and the digital footprint from events have disappeared. This is really bad news for many people. Twitter search has become our memory jogger - a place we go to to pick up on the threads of past conversations.

As an example HealthcampMd took place on June 19th - a few short weeks ago, yet there is only one tweet in search from 6 days ago.

If you are covering an event this is bad news. The lasting digital footprint is an important outcome from an event. Is twitter just throwing their history away, or are they focusing resources on the real-time part of search? We need to know!

If you are running an event there is something you can do. I have used CoverItLive on a number of occasions. Thankfully I did this for the HealthCampMd event. CoverItLive is a great service that can aggregate the conversations going on at an event. They don't appear to throw away the history like Twitter is currently doing.

Here is their history of the HealthCampMd event.

BTW - Thanks to SocialText for hosting HealthCamp event sites and the site for http://healthca.mp. Thanks to them we are just in the process of setting up HealthCampToronto for September 16th. They create a great collaboration environment and their SocialText Desktop AIR application is a really nice feature as an event gets closer and traffic on the HealthCamp event site increases. Check out the demo here.

Enterprise Collaboration at Scale

Ideo is presenting their learnings from operating in a collaborative manner at scale.

Common Enterprise Collaboration Issues:

• Sharing between multiple locations is difficult.
• Communications get locked in silos in hierarchical organizations

Most organizations think about technology first:

• Blogs
• Wikis
• Crowdsourcing
• Social Networking
• Telepresence
• Real-Time Collaboration software

The issue is that ROI does not appear because of other factors:

• Rewards
• Culture
• Organization Design
• Knowledge Sharing
• Content
• Achieving Adoption
• Abilities
• Systems Design

Design Thinking: Starts and ends with individuals

• Culture
• Behaviors
• Motivations
• Social Interactions

Human Factors link with technology Factors and Business Factors.

Understand these factors, then brainstorm and prototype then develop:

i.e. Understand, Explore and Develop.

Ideo experimented with Video conferencing by leaving it on all the time. eg. in team rooms and in public places.

Telepresence hasn't worked out effectively. Eye contact doesn't work.

Instead they experimented with adding an iMac on the table in the and a videographer.

May be they should look at Microsoft Roundtable which rpovides a 360 degree panoramic view.

It is hard to get data out of peoples heads and in to Databases. It looses the context that makes it valuable.

Instead connect brains by creating:

• Intuitive interfaces
• Reward individual participation
• Automatic navigation
• No training setup

iPhone - 6.5% market share for smartphones yet 63% of all mobile browsing.

• Go where people already are
• Build Adaptive systems

You can't just deploy a system and be done.

Prototype early and prototype in context. Then iterate quickly.

Create Adaptive Intuitive People Centric systems that reward individual participation and integrate in to their daily workflow.

After five successive attempts at implementation they have implemented ThoughtFarmer

They wrote their own wrapper using Ruby on Linux. The blogging is built on SixApart's MoveableType's platform.

IDEO implements security based upon Trust and a 3 category qualification: Green = Open, Red = Internal only, Black = partitioned due to sensitivity eg. Customer anonymity or conflicts of interest across teams. The Wiki is for Green and Red projects.

Getting people to write valuable people and project pages:

To address this utilize:

• Recognition
• Project Staffing
• Career Development

This is leading to input to organizational design.

The Tools are a natural part of the workflow. eg. a digest of project status rather than dealing with email.

People are bad at describing tacit knowledge. This is what led to a focus on connecting people. People leave so they are working on extending tools through to Ideo affiliates (ie. clients, partners and alumni)

Tiers of knowledge Management (from McKinsey)

• Friction points (new infrastructure to address)
• Behavior change (harder to do but builds on new infrastructure)

Social Software in the Enterprise

Ross Mayfield (@Ross) presented a fascinating insight in to Enterprise 2.0 and the role of Social Intranets and Social Media.

Enterprise 2.0 was defined by Andrew McAfee as having 5 elements:

SLATES:

• Search
• Link
• Tag
• Extensions
• Signals

People play email volleyball with attachments.

The average person in a company spends 1 day/week looking for people and information

Search provides results and not answers.

Discovery provides answers sometimes from people and context.

Social Messaging is an ability to ask questions and get answers without interrupting people.

Social Discovery enables a different way to work.

In call centers 50% of CSR's turn to Google to find answers they can't find find inside.

Even Sharepoint doesn't help because search in sharepoint disconnects the document from the context in which it was created.

How do employees focus on the important things?

How do people discover connections to get work done?

Online documents solve the problem of sharing.

Social Messaging is new and close to real time.

Enterprise 2.0 Anti-Patterns

Aaron Kim, IBM Senior Managing Consultant, Emerging Technologies - IBM Canada presenting on Anti-Patterns, ROI and Metrics.

Twitter tags: #w2e #antip

• How to go from Hype to productivity
• Enterprise 2.0 Anti-patterns

Anti-pattern is a pattern that tells you how to go from a problem to a bad solution.

Fear 2.0: Fear is not a bad thing but action paralysis is bad. Failure comes with a name tag.

Is innovating less risky than not innovating.

Full control is no longer in your hands.

"Fail often, fail quickly, fail gracefully and learn from it." - Mike Moran

Hype 2.0: I want it because it's cool. I want it because Gartner et al said I need it.

New World, Old Patterns:Knowledge is in people's heads. People are portable.

Email is the knowledge repository. It is hidden to everyone - except you.

Personal Hard Drives hold data but is not typically shared.

People are your competitive advantage:

When you use wikis, blogs, podcasts and other broadcast tools you extend your reach and passively expand your network.

New World, Old Habits: There can be subtle differences between tools. A fool with a tool is still a fool.

Business Week - Taking full advantage of Web 2.0 may require Management 2.0.

Build it and they will come: If Wikipedia works so will mine.

People have limited bandwidth.

Clay Shirky's: Plausible promise, effective tool and acceptable bargain (HCE).

User Adoption Plan + Balanced Incentives.

The World is Flat: Everyone is not the same. Differences will always exist.

Geekness 2.0: Anybody can do it. Laziness 2.0 comes in to play. It has to be easy. Enable gradual adoptin.

Best of Breed: Proven solutions work well but in isolation.

Wikis are good for somethings - but not everything.

Adopt an integrated solution that meets core needs, augmented by best of breed and has enterprise grade support.

Integration is your competitive advantage and may be the innovators edge.

Search and you will not find:

You get a lot of bad with the good. We need filters to surface the good. We need to make sure good content floats to the top.

Data as your competitive Advantage:

Intangible means unmeasurable: Nobody asks what is the ROI for phone and email.

Business Value must discount costs.

Value Creation v. Value Capture

Easy to understand business case

Easy to calculate ROI models.

Measure Supply , not Demand: Bloggers, posts, wiki spaces, authors are measures of supply.

Not all User Generated Content has business value.

ROI and Metrics

If there is not "R" then it is just "C" - Cost.

63% of companies use ROI, TCO and IRR as measures of investment in Web 2.0.

Limited resources means you need to be able to make a case against competing projects.

The Right Metrics

1. What is the business objective
2. Is the metric stable
3. Can a benchmark be established
4. What are the levers to influence the metric

Returns need to be broadly defined:

Revenues, conversions, social capital, cost avoidance

You may need multiple Web 2.0 ROI models.

Control in Social Media is like grabbing water - Pauline Ores, IBM

In the Social Media World the most powerful person is the one who shares the most.

Sharing has more power than holding knowledge.

Get With The Connected Enterprise

This Thursday November 6th, 2008 at 11:00am Eastern Time I am participating in a one hour free Webinar on the Connected Enterprise. Join Lee White (EQuint Consulting), Michael Lee Stallard (E Pluribus Partners), Lee Bryant (Headshift) and myself for what should be a fascinating discussion about the adoption of collaborative tools in the enterprise. We should each be bringing a different perspective so it should make for a great discussion.

Here is the key bit of information, https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/999220840 the registration link

What we aim to address is how social tools can be used within companies to improve organizational productivity.

Join me for the Webinar.

If you have questions before the event you can always message @ekivemark on Twitter. Include #connected in your message so it is easy to pull the questions together.

RSS Tricks at BarCampRDU

Nathan Gilliatt gave an interesting talk on RSS tricks. The first example was using feed informer to consolidate feeds.

AideRSS filters RSS feeds based on popularity based on comments, posts to del.icio.us etc.

Feedblitz provides RSS to email integration

Dapper.net is another site that lets you manipulate RSS feeds.

But how can you do this inside the enterprise firewall?

You could use Presto from JackBe?

Another alternative that I thought of is to install the Open Source version of SocialText and use the platform to collect RSS feeds and re-purpose those feeds via a wiki page.

Microsoft's SharePoint is not an option if you want to aggregate or filter SharePoint RSS feeds because the RSS feed handler in SharePoint does not handle the authenticated feeds produced by SharePoint.

Campers deciding the Agenda at BarCampRDU earlier today.

SharePoint and shifting the Culture

Like it or not Microsoft is tightly embedded in many corporations and the freely licensed Windows Sharepoint Server (WSS) makes the Sharepoint collaboration experience an easy decision for many organizations that don't want to take the time to consider their real needs.

To me SharePoint is a fractured product. It perpetuates the document centric view that has been at the heart of the Office suite for so long. do you feel the frustration of everything being an extra click away because the information you are looking for might be buried in a word, excel or powerpoint document? Do you get frustrated by a word document being loaded inside the browser and in a moment of distraction you close the window and realize you just closed the browser and need to relaunch and navigate down the myriad menus and links to get back to where you were?

I am also coming to a realization that many organizations do not do themselves any favors by the way they deploy SharePoint. Given that the Search tools leave a lot to be desired the tendency to replicate the Shared Drive structure in Folders within libraries in SharePoint leads to a frustrating experience when searching for information. This then is compounded when SharePoint is implemented as a lightweight document repository. The result is often document libraries that are lacking the context and discussion around the documents. In the basic Sharepoint implementation the Discussion libraries are self contained and make it a frustrating experience to link back to other content.

So how can we make things better? How can we encourage a more forward thinking deployment of SharePoint that helps to change the culture to encourage real collaboration amongst team members?

I am facing these challenges on a daily basis. As a result I have been thinking about some principles for SharePoint sites. A set of principles that can encourage collaboration and improve information accessibility. Here is my list. I welcome your contribution to improve this list.

SharePoint Sites - Principles for Collaboration

• Don't reproduce the shared folder in SharePoint sites and libraries
• Categorize information in lists to enable filtering, sorting and grouping
• Keep text out of documents
• Hyperlink whenever possible
• Enable comment and discussion around content
• Make sure version histories are enabled
• Make information openly readable whenever possible

Don't reproduce the shared folder in SharePoint sites and libraries

Sharepoint makes it easy to create folders inside libraries and sites but it doesn't make it easy to navigate back up through the folder structure.

Wherever possible create additional fields in lists and libraries that allow pseudo folders to be created and then create views that sort, group or filter by those pseudo folders.

Create a category field to describe the type of document. Use this field so that you avoid creating libraries for presentations, white papers, templates and other documents that fracture the overall picture. Setup views to group and filter by document type. When used in conjunction with pseudo folders this allows all documents for a given subject to be seen in one view.

Categorize information in lists to enable filtering, sorting and grouping

As per the previous point. Use additional fields in lists to allow information to be categorized and viewed logically without requiring folders to be created to segregate information.

Keep text out of documents

Use the Wiki library function and the Rich Notes fields in lists to allow users to enter information directly in SharePoint. This avoids the double or triple mouse click to load a word, excel or powerpoint document just to find it doesn't have the information you are seeking.

Use the notes and comments fields when documents are uploaded to allow a description of the document. This can be more helpful than the sometimes cryptic document file names.

Hyperlink whenever possible

You don't need to copy information if you can link to an existing source. Use this capability to make it easier for users to find information as they navigate documents and lists. Hyperlinks can also be used to bring users back to SharePoint and keep people engaged with the sites you create.

This is a practice that is slow to be adopted by many users. Therefore as the site "Gardner" it falls on your shoulders to edit content to add in links when you know they are available. Lead by example!

Enable comment and discussion around content

Don't create a replication of the shared folder where libraries and sites just contain documents. Create A Wiki library and encourage comment in the pages of the Wiki. As per the previous point, link back to content in the document databases.

One simple trick to encourage comment, given the barebones nature of the SharePoint Wiki library, is to finish every Wiki page with a "Comment" headline and a tag "Enter your comments about this page by clicking edit. You can even make "Edit" a hyperlink that is tied to the Edit URL of the page, just copy it from the browser address bar.

Make sure version histories are enabled

I often encounter libraries and sites where versioning of documents is not implemented. Switch this on! It goes a long way to reduce the fear factor amongst new users when they realize that they aren't destroying content if they make a mistake.

Make information openly readable whenever possible

In many organizations the temptation is to over use the security features in SharePoint. The more you have tight controls the harder it becomes for users to make changes. Simple edits, such as for spelling errors become bigger production efforts.

Think very carefully about security. You may want to create a sub-site for Work In Progress that is not ready for prime time and limit the access to just the direct team members. The rest of the site may well be okay to grant at least read only rights to a much wider audience.

Remember the more you tighten the access reins, the more time you will spend diagnosing access issues and granting and revoking access rights.

What have I missed?

That is my seven point list. I am sure I have overlooked something. Let me know your thoughts. What would be your top principles for creating a great SharePoint site that encourages collaboration? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Enterprise 2.0 concerns

Andrew McAfee wrote recently about the Questions he has been asked about Enterprise 2.0. As I scanned the list there was one question I have been asked on multiple occasions when talking about the use of Wikis inside a company. The question usually goes something like this:

"What happens when somebody posts information that is wrong?"

This can quickly lead in to a discussion about the need for a formal editorial committee for any material posted to the wiki.

My response to head off this line of thinking is this:

• We are no worse off than we are today, indeed we may be much better off
• The concern behind this question usually comes from people experiencing incorrect, or unauthorized, information being distributed via email
• In the email paradigm erroneous information can persist for much longer depending upon who is included in the distribution list for the email.
• In the Wiki paradigm (usually) anyone can have visibility to information and so the error can be caught much more quickly
• Once the error is caught there is only one copy to correct, unlike email where the error can persist in people's email archive.
• What you tend to see is that people with specialist interests will monitor topics of interest to them and will catch errors earlier in the process, all without the need for heavy handed editorial control.

Where did the Semantic Wiki go?

Last week I looked at Atomization of applications to enable the construction of new processes. Atomization is the de-construction of applications in to re-usable components that can be combined to create new solutions. I see this as important because I believe we are entering an 

era in the Enterprise where the 80% application will emerge. What do I mean by this? 

Agile development methodologies have been adopted by some organizations to improve the delivery capability of the IT department. Instead of developing all encompassing applications Agile delivers solutions incrementally. This has the advantage of just developing the code that is required where as the traditional waterfall development leads to catch all requirements inclusion which is often driven by the long development lead times, which is driven by the need to code for all eventualities, which is...... and so it goes around in a vicious circle.

But there is a new game in town. Users have become familiar with drag and drop widgets and personal web pages that can be adapted to their needs. The growth of RSS has also provided a triggering mechanism that has been put to use by some people to drive processes. This new world, when coupled with the atomization of monolithic applications is creating new opportunities to meet the demand for transient applications. The Wiki has an important role to play in this new world.

I see wiki technology being adapted, through the use of widgets to provide crude workflow capabilities that can be built by end users without intervention or support of an IT department. We are already seeing this in the consumer sector with services like Yahoo Pipes.

Gartner has pointed out how business is changing and we are seeing applications becoming disposable. The "80% application", based around wiki technology are the potential manifestation of the disposable apps that Gartner points to.

My definition of the "80% application" is a simple application that is built from modules of code and glued together with data feeds using standard services like RSS. The "application" is basic and can be constructed in a matter of hours and can meet 80% of the functionality required by the users. Wikis provide the ability to deliver this capability in a matter of hours to a point where a prototype can be demonstrated. These applications will filter and extract information and present it to users. There may still be a strong element of manual processing but the heavy lifting of compiling the data to be worked on will have been automated.

The "80% application" is good enough to support emergent coordination and new workflows but not so good that users aren't prepared to throw it away for a better, more complete solution.

In the context of all this the Wiki needs to evolve with critical semantic capabilities built around emerging microformat standards. We should be looking to Enterprise Wiki vendors to be delivering widgets that can be incorporated in to Wiki templates. These widgets can provide containers to add semantic context to the data being entered by users. For example, a widget to embed address formating that makes address information hCard compliant. It is this type of development, utilizing a growing range of microformats that can turbo charge the enterprise wiki and support the 80% application. 

Taking text entered in to a wiki to the next level by embedding machine interpretable meaning  around that text opens up a world of new possibilities. Imagine machine interpretable data being delivered to a simple workflow process by an RSS feed. The ability to act of wiki text becomes dramatically enhanced. 

I have been getting increasingly interested in the potential of the Semantic Wiki but it looks like the Semantic Wiki has remained stuck in 2005 as an academic issue. I would love to be proven wrong by some of the major enterprise wiki players. Come on, show me that the Semantic Wiki is a reality and is busily embedding machine interpretable content in to the every growing number of wiki pages and sites that users generate every day. 

So, SocialText, Atlassian, Near-Time and other wiki developers show me the Semantic Wiki is alive and well and not just an academic exercise.

Is Sharepoint a collaboration platform or not?

Of late I have been working a lot with Sharepoint 2003 and Wikis. Amongst all this what has been pre-occupying my thought has been the question of how to leverage a community to build a knowledge base that will be valuable and, like wikipedia, fuels its own growth.

Last week in my Corporate 2.0 post I found myself questioning whether Sharepoint is really a collaboration platform. The more I work with the product the more I keep asking this question. May be it is down to how Sharepoint is being implemented. It could be that traditional IT departments are implementing Sharepoint with old style governance and control structures, pre-defined site templates and controlled access. In this environment it is hard for Sharepoint to demonstrate an emergent structure - something that Andrew McAfee points to as a critical trends in Enterprise 2.0. 

When Sharepoint's structure gets pre-defined along traditional lines. The result is one step up from a shared file server. A platform offering lightweight document management capabilities and list management functions.

So, if you are looking to implement a wiki as a means to compile a knowledge base follow these tips:

1. Keep security simple
2. Fight to keep the wiki open to all 
3. Provide some signposts but let the structure and content emerge
4. Moderate - not for censorship purposes but instead to organize and make information easier to find - just like a good gardener

I was also reading Michael Idinopulos's Transparent Office blog. His advice should be taken very seriously. It is so "spot on." His three best practices in creating a knowledge base are:

1. Structure by topic, not by organization
2. Lead with what you want, not what you have
3. Link, link, link

Do you have other best practices that are worth sharing? Let me know!