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The impact of corporate culture on technology decisions
IT managers, CIOs, CTOs and others make technology decisions about a wide variety of solutions that impact how we work: email, archiving, encryption, collaboration, managed file transfer, Web 2.0 applications and so forth. Decision makers take into account the features and functions these systems will provide, how they will mitigate risk, how they will boost productivity or how they will boost revenue.
However, I believe that a key missing element in the analysis of what will work and how much it will cost is how (or even if) it will be used. This is simply because a key determinant in the success of many technology solutions is the existing culture of the corporate environment. For example:
- If you deploy a corporate collaboration system based on social networking that allows employees to share information through Twitter-like capabilities, blogging and the like, but your corporate culture rewards employees for hoarding information, the collaboration system will have little impact and might actually be resented by some.
- If you deploy easy-to-use, manual encryption capabilities for your employees, but do not make it easy for your employees’ recipients to receive and open encrypted emails, few will send encrypted communications.
- If you want to alleviate the burden of large attachments sent through email and improve the security of your content by deploying a managed file transfer system, it will be necessary to make this system about as easy to use as email. However, if a file transfer system is cumbersome and disruptive to normal workflows, it simply won’t be used.
The key, therefore, is to examine technology solutions in light of the existing corporate culture to see what will be used and what employees will simply ignore. Corporate edicts of “thou shalt use” the new technology are unlikely to work – employees will typically find workarounds that will negate the value of the investment in the new technology. Instead, corporate culture should be the first thing that decision makers review in light of a) the current state of the culture and b) where they might like it to be. For example, if productivity and the bottom line will be improved by employees sharing information, they must first develop a corporate culture that rewards people for sharing information, working in teams, developing communities of content sharing and the like – and then deploy solutions that will enable that to happen.
Deploying technology first and hoping corporate culture catches up rarely works.
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Would You Take a GroupWise 8 Certification Exam?
Novell and VMware join forces with Unified Certification for ISVs
Novell and VMware are making it easier for independent software vendors (ISVs) to optimize their applications for SUSE Linux Enterprise and VMware ESX. Novell is the first operating system vendor to offer Unified Certification for ISVs with VMware.
Unified Certification status means that applications tested and certified on SUSE Linux Enterprise within a virtual machine are automatically certified to run in a VMware virtualized environment with no modifications. Participating ISVs will be able to utilize each company’s partner programs, meaning expanded market opportunities through these extensive ecosystems. This offering complements Novell’s VMware Ready status–a certification that ensures optimal performance for virtual appliances built through the SUSE Appliance Program, the fastest and easiest way for ISVs to create and manage software appliances–and deployed within the VMware virtualized environment.
SUSE Appliance Program powers software appliances
Last week, another ISV announced a software appliance built as part of the SUSE Appliance Program from Novell. ROC Software has released the ROC EasySpooler SUSE-powered appliance, based on the company’s ROC EasySpooler core technology and a fully-supported version of SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell. ROC Software joins the ranks of GroundWork Open Source and Zmanda, ISVs who also recently announced SUSE-powered appliances.
Paul A. Scripko, ROC’s VP Business Development, said, “Joining the SUSE Appliance Program and having access to the SUSE Studio appliance building tools and marketing support from Novell helped ROC reduce development time to a matter of weeks and release product to market at a fraction of the usual time required.”
GroupWise and the iPhone 101 Ways to Make it Work
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SkyPRO Adds Skype and iPhone/Android to SkyCOM
LinuxCon and Linux Collaboration Summit
GWAVA Supports Novell’s New Sync Server
Download GWAVACon 2010 Presentations
A clean sweep … ZENworks Patch Management gets five-star rating
SC Magazine has just published its review of ZENworks Patch Management. Backed by Novell’s strong support organization and ZENworks Patch Management’s centralized Web-based administration and ability to scale for any size environment, the review notes, “… we found that Novell’s solution represents a great value for many different-sized enterprises.” SC Magazine gave ZENworks Patch Management five stars in each category and also named its recommended product this month.
Check out the five-star product rating here and learn more about ZENworks Patch Management here.
OT: Microsoft Exhausts Coupons for SUSE Linux
Is Twitter the Next CB Radio?
“Twitter is so lame”
So says one particular 15 year old quoted in a February 4, 2010 USA Today article outlining how teens and young adults are using social media these days. Apparently, teenagers, who have a history of being early adopters on nearly every online activity are not so keen on Twitter.
It’s my job to explore all avenues for marketing effectiveness and the world of social media is perhaps the hottest area for exploration among the Chief Marketing Officers I know. But this survey, with particular emphasis on the less than enthusiastic uptake on Twitter with tomorrow’s decision makers, is giving me reason to pause and ask “Is Twitter the CB Radio of social media?” Perhaps an explanation is in order.
CB Radio. I suspect I date myself. Come back to the 1970’s when CB (closed band) radio was all the rage. CB radio was a way to connect with complete strangers or friends with a reasonable investment and no variable cost to participation. And like Twitter, the value of CB radio was exponential to the number of devices in use. CB radio aficionados were enthusiastic defenders of the medium. Heck they even had their own language, lingo and “handles”. Handles – names they called themselves that protected their anonymity (in a time when protecting one’s privacy seemed to matter – but that’s another blog). CB ”handles” were the equivalent of Twitter ids. The point is there was a period in the 70’s that if you didn’t have a CB radio, you weren’t part of the conversation. But alas, CB radio never reached the promise or potential of its supporters and today it’s a pop culture item and answer to a trivial pursuit question.
Is Twitter heading in the same direction as CB radio? If teenagers have anything to say about it I suspect so. In truth, I’m not yet convinced that Twitter is going to make it either. I may take some criticism for that but from my seat the most prolific users of Twitter today are egotists or marketers – sometimes these are the same people. Yes I use Twitter and encourage my team and company to use it as well. But unless the use broadens and companies begin to understand the linkage between using Twitter (and other social media avenues for that matter) and delivering a better customer experience, I suspect we’ll all move on to the next big thing. After all, who wants to be using something that today’s youth view as “lame”.
John
Is Twitter the Next CB Radio?
“Twitter is so lame”
So says one particular 15 year old quoted in a February 4, 2010 USA Today article outlining how teens and young adults are using social media these days. Apparently, teenagers, who have a history of being early adopters on nearly every online activity are not so keen on Twitter.
It’s my job to explore all avenues for marketing effectiveness and the world of social media is perhaps the hottest area for exploration among the Chief Marketing Officers I know. But this survey, with particular emphasis on the less than enthusiastic uptake on Twitter with tomorrow’s decision makers, is giving me reason to pause and ask “Is Twitter the CB Radio of social media?” Perhaps an explanation is in order.
CB Radio. I suspect I date myself. Come back to the 1970’s when CB (closed band) radio was all the rage. CB radio was a way to connect with complete strangers or friends with a reasonable investment and no variable cost to participation. And like Twitter, the value of CB radio was exponential to the number of devices in use. CB radio aficionados were enthusiastic defenders of the medium. Heck they even had their own language, lingo and “handles”. Handles – names they called themselves that protected their anonymity (in a time when protecting one’s privacy seemed to matter – but that’s another blog). CB ”handles” were the equivalent of Twitter ids. The point is there was a period in the 70’s that if you didn’t have a CB radio, you weren’t part of the conversation. But alas, CB radio never reached the promise or potential of its supporters and today it’s a pop culture item and answer to a trivial pursuit question.
Is Twitter heading in the same direction as CB radio? If teenagers have anything to say about it I suspect so. In truth, I’m not yet convinced that Twitter is going to make it either. I may take some criticism for that but from my seat the most prolific users of Twitter today are egotists or marketers – sometimes these are the same people. Yes I use Twitter and encourage my team and company to use it as well. But unless the use broadens and companies begin to understand the linkage between using Twitter (and other social media avenues for that matter) and delivering a better customer experience, I suspect we’ll all move on to the next big thing. After all, who wants to be using something that today’s youth view as “lame”.
John
GWAVACon Highlights New Novell Sync Technology Along with Mobility and Security Solutions
GWAVACon 2010 was a great success! Sessions and keynotes from industry experts provided timely messages about email trends in the industry. We heard a lot about Novell’s new sync technology and there were lots of discussions about the cloud, mobility and messaging security.
Here’s a sample of some of the popular sessions:
• Teaming 2: A Technical Review
• Maximizing GroupWise 8 in Windows for your End Users
• Reload, Retain, Vertigo and GWAVA 4.5 Hands-on Training
• GroupWise Mobility and Mobile Device Management
• First Look at Novell Synchronizer
• Power User Training for your BlackBerry
• Advansys Portable Archiving
• Surviving a Security Attack
• DocXchanger – an Advanced Approach to Locating, Accessing and Sharing Documents
• Get the Whole Story on Stubbing in GroupWise
• Unified Communications for GroupWise: SKyCOM, FaxGwise, SKySMS
• GroupWise and the iPhone – 101 Ways to Make it Work
If you missed GWAVACon or one of the sessions you wanted to attend, there is good news. A complete list of sessions at GWAVACon and downloadable PDFs for each one is available on the GWAVACon website.
Everyone at GWAVACon enjoyed the interesting keynotes. Ken Muir, Chief Technology Officer at Novell, spoke about Novell’s strategy with collaboration and data management. Exciting new developments include Pulse and “Gradenko,” Novell’s sync technology.
Adam Gray of Novacoast talked about computing in the cloud – different ways you can take advantage of the cloud, including cost tradeoffs for data storage. Then in an exciting turn of events, GWAVAMan swooped in at lunchtime, creating a fun photo opportunity with our favorite security software superhero!
Three keynotes on Tuesday touched on trends in the messaging and collaboration space, the expanding use of mobile devices and the future health of both GWAVA and Novell.
Michael Osterman of Osterman Research shared some research with the group. On a typical day, each person sends or receives 124-149 emails and spends 152 minutes per day dealing with email. Outside of work, 82% of people check work-related emails from home during weekends; 61% check email on vacation. He also discussed median costs of GroupWise versus Exchange, with GroupWise being the most stable and least expensive option. He encouraged the group to determine what their email costs are for their organization so they will be able to make informed decisions about different email systems and storage solutions.
Michael Toto from Verizon discussed how his company is bringing mobile data applications with its partners to its customers.
Charles Taite, CTO of GWAVA, discussed how GWAVA will be supporting Novell’s new synchronization server with anti-virus, attachment filtering, content control, monitoring, alerting and archiving. He also discussed how Pulse, soon to be released by Novell, will integrate email with other forms of electronic communication and will provide realtime, unified social and document collaboration. Because of this trend, GWAVA will expand its emphasis on protecting new forms of electronic messaging. Lots of new releases of GWAVA products and a new product supporting Pulse are planned for 2010.
Make sure you check out GWAVA at BrainShare!
Is Twitter the Next CB Radio?
“Twitter is so lame”
So says one particular 15 year old quoted in a February 4, 2010 USA Today article outlining how teens and young adults are using social media these days. Apparently, teenagers, who have a history of being early adopters on nearly every online activity are not so keen on Twitter.
It’s my job to explore all avenues for marketing effectiveness and the world of social media is perhaps the hottest area for exploration among the Chief Marketing Officers I know. But this survey, with particular emphasis on the less than enthusiastic uptake on Twitter with tomorrow’s decision makers, is giving me reason to pause and ask “Is Twitter the CB Radio of social media?” Perhaps an explanation is in order.
CB Radio. I suspect I date myself. Come back to the 1970’s when CB (citizens band) radio was all the rage. CB radio was a way to connect with complete strangers or friends with a reasonable investment and no variable cost to participation. And like Twitter, the value of CB radio was exponential to the number of devices in use. CB radio aficionados were enthusiastic defenders of the medium. Heck they even had their own language, lingo and “handles”. Handles – names they called themselves that protected their anonymity (in a time when protecting one’s privacy seemed to matter – but that’s another blog). CB ”handles” were the equivalent of Twitter ids. The point is there was a period in the 70’s that if you didn’t have a CB radio, you weren’t part of the conversation. But alas, CB radio never reached the promise or potential of its supporters and today it’s a pop culture item and answer to a trivial pursuit question.
Is Twitter heading in the same direction as CB radio? If teenagers have anything to say about it I suspect so. In truth, I’m not yet convinced that Twitter is going to make it either. I may take some criticism for that but from my seat the most prolific users of Twitter today are egotists or marketers – sometimes these are the same people. Yes I use Twitter and encourage my team and company to use it as well. But unless the use broadens and companies begin to understand the linkage between using Twitter (and other social media avenues for that matter) and delivering a better customer experience, I suspect we’ll all move on to the next big thing. After all, who wants to be using something that today’s youth view as “lame”.
John
GroupWise Update Path and No NetWare
Free GWAVA Reload and Retain Technical Training in New York
GWAVA continues its commitment to provide valuable hands-on training for its popular Reload and Retain products. If you live in the New York area, join GWAVA experts on Thursday, February 11, 2010.
In the first session, you will learn how to install GWAVA Reload and create a post office against a Linux PO. You will also see how to configure standard, portable and TAR backup schedules and learn how those backups work. Training will also include configuring restore, disaster recovery and Retain post office agents.
The second session will focus on Retain training, including creating a Retain profile and how to best set up and schedule jobs to optimize your archiving. You will also learn about stubbing and how Retain implements it. There will also be time for questions and answers.
Novell Offices
1177 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Admission is free, but please register here before coming. Breakfast is provided. Bring your laptop.
Free GWAVA Reload and Retain Technical Training in Philadelphia
GWAVA continues its commitment to provide valuable hands-on training for its popular Reload and Retain products. If you live in the Philadelphia area, join GWAVA experts on Friday, February 12, 2010.
In the first session, you will learn how to install GWAVA Reload and create a post office against a Linux PO. You will also see how to configure standard, portable and TAR backup schedules and learn how those backups work. Training will also include configuring restore, disaster recovery and Retain post office agents.
The second session will focus on Retain training, including creating a Retain profile and how to best set up and schedule jobs to optimize your archiving. You will also learn about stubbing and how Retain implements it. There will also be time for questions and answers.
Philadelphia Marriott Downtown
1201 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107
Admission is free, but please register here before coming. Breakfast is provided. Bring your laptop.
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