Somnus Vox

Xobni to my Rescue...!

nobody@vox.com(somnus) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:56:10 -0800

I used to use a great plugin for Outlook called "Lookout" that handled the indexing of my email and files (local and network).

It did super fast searches, used very little resources, and was free. It was a Microsoft beta program and was only around for a few years. They got rid of it when they incorporated search into Vista.

The problem with Vista's search (as well as Google desktop search) is that when the file set get large (3+GB email and 100GB's of files) it uses up a ton of resources and slows things down to an unacceptable degree. Neither MS or Google desktop search is all that standout on indexing network files either.

Man, how I miss Lookout!

That why I was so excited to read in TechCrunch about a new indexer (and much more) called Xobni ("inbox" backwards - oh how these email search apps like the backwords spelling!), now in beta and about to be aquired by Microsoft. It looks like a lightning fast indexer, with catogorization, meta data, threaded discussions, and web-lookup thrown in.

Oh, how I want this!!!

I'm hoping to start the beta soon!

Check Xobni out!

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The Perils of Corporate Email

nobody@vox.com(somnus) — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:16:07 -0700

I recently had the following scenario related to me by a good friend of mine:

Someone sent out at our company yesterday a broadcast e-mail to everyone in the corporation asking if they had a recommendation for a specific situation. It happens occasionally.

Someone else replied to all with a specific suggestion. She should have replied only to the sender, but not a big deal.

Then someone else replied to all asking to be removed from this list (possibly facetiously, possibly not). Oh, my, the results were entertaining.

In the end, more than 75 e-mails were sent to everyone in the company, each one a variation of:

Take me off this list, too.

Everyone please stop replying to all.

Individuals making fun of the whole thing (e.g. the e-mail that simply stated “I just wanted to be the 40^th person to send an e-mail in this thread.”)

Their IT guy estimated approximately a half a million e-mails were generated internally.

My friend estimated that, even if each email took only 1 second for people to look at and delete, there were still 17 working days lost cumulatively to this email chain.

It really underscores how modern tools - in this case email - aren’t always all that modern anymore and are, at least in some cases, not even the right tools for the job...

Imagine if employees had specific spaces on their corporate intranets where teams could outline problems with members who would likely have the knowledge and background to solve them.

Imagine if employees could post a request for information in a common area devoted to the kind of knowledge they were seeking. Then other employee, who had something useful to contribute to solving the problem, could discuss the situation in a threaded discussion.

Imagine if solutions could be presented in these spaces in a format that could be easily tagged, searched for, and even modified in the future as others refined the processes and added to the base of knowledge.

But, of course, no imagination is really necessary. All these tools exist - and a few forward thinking companies have already implemented them. Now all those companies need are enough forward thinking employees to really make them work.

Much has been made about the Web 2.0 revolution and the rapid rise of social media over the last two years. And, while the public social-media-scape makes general social relationships easier to form and maintain (and will surely generate some new Web-billionaires in the process), the real economic promise of the Web 2.0 revolution is going to come from within corporations. I truly believe internal social collaboration and sharing is the next big productivity step about to be taken by companies that rely on knowledge workers.

The key, of course, is to get those knowledge workers to “get it” and contribute their private-knowledge base into the whole public-knowledge base of a corporation where it can mix with other’s contributions creating a “force-multiplying” effect. Employees need to realize that the old adage about money is now just as true about time…It takes time to make time. A little time spent by a few folks on an internal social-media site (perhaps a blog, wiki or discussion group) would have saved a company 17 days of worker productivity. Imagine the bright future for the first few companies with employees who really get that!

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Twitter or Pownce...?

nobody@vox.com(somnus) — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 01:17:24 -0700

Webware had an interesting article on whether to go with Twitter or Pownce for your nanoblogging* needs.

The article's obvious answer was "whatever service all your friends are on". Which makes a lot of sense.

For me, the obvious answer was Twitter - because I'm only going to update it frequently if I can text in my updates.

But then author Rafe Needleman hits me with the big gun, and realization dawns...

"...give Pownce a serious look, especially if you're thinking of using it in a work setting. With Pownce, you can easily set up a group of contacts, and use the service to keep co-workers up to date on what you're doing as well as the latest versions of documents you're working on. Also in Pownce, replies to particular nanoblog entries are easily tracked in their own threads, on their own pages. If something you write starts a discussion, it's much easier to keep track of what people are saying than it is on Twitter. Again, this is a great feature for business users."

Pownce is a business tool!!!

Agency wide info...No Problem! Team updates...No Problem! Place-independant access to working documents...Again, no Problamo!

And so now, it all makes sense to me (it might even make the IM clamor-crowd happy! Mmmmm...).

(Now we just need the agency Facebook up and we'll really have some crazy integration!)

*Twitter/Powce/jaiku = "Nanoblogs". Well coined, mystery word coining person!

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Zeus Jones

nobody@vox.com(somnus) — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 12:38:03 -0700

I heard the greatest term in a business meeting the other day...

"Zeus Jones!"

Apperently it means an unusual juxtaposition.

Like, "Wow, seeing Tommy Chong and John Ashcroft having dinner togather last night was so Zeus Jones!"

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Social Media

nobody@vox.com(somnus) — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:57:47 -0700

I've just started putting together a glossary of social media terms and sites (which will be outdated as of yesterday, I suppose). We are going to do try and cover all the main social media sites in an hour during a "brown bag" session tomorrow, showing interesting uses and business impacts all the way.

It approaches imposable.

And I'm sick. Really really really sick.

My eyes are watering so bad it looks like I'm at the funeral of a wedding party. And that's after the maximum dose, (plus a couple extra for good measure) of pseudaphed. No sleep for me for awhile, I guess.

I better wait to make copies of my "catalogue raisonné" of the web 2.0 cream...or it's going to be all water stained...

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Sharepoint = Success

nobody@vox.com(somnus) — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 12:00:06 -0700

Setting up sharepoint on a new virtual server instance solved all sorts of problems which should not have been there in the first place...Will it be applicable to our grand wiki Intranet scheme? I can't wait to find out...

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To IM or not to IM

nobody@vox.com(somnus) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 11:56:56 -0700

One of the big issues of the day is whether to officially use IM at our agency or not. We currently allow IM to be used by anyone who wants to on an ad hoc basis. We also, certainly, require its use if there is a client need/demand. The thing is...there has never been a client need/demand for IM. Clients want to use email. They know how to use it, are comfortable with it, and like the record keeping it provides.

I have used IM with my friends to varying degrees of success, but I tend to end up keeping my away message on so I can concentrate on work. Wouldn't everyone???? ;-)

Actually, it's the away message and the "presence awareness" it provides that has generated the best argument, in my mind, for IM at our office. To tell the truth, I wasn't even thinking about the business impact of the away message until a co-worker brought it up. It's a much better "out-board" than an actual out-board - but shouldn't we just be using an out-board applet then (something on our intranet...)?

Maybe mobile use is a reason to encourage IM? My coworkers could then IM from meetings without generating a bunch of back-and-forth emails. But, do I want them IM'ing from meetings? And if it's important enough to send an IM, isn't it important enough to save???? (Maybe I'm just a total geezer!).

I think a small study here at the agency is in order. Stay tuned...

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