Will Micro-blogging replace the need for quick project status meetings and reports?
The jury is still out, but the trend is in to use “Twitter-like” functionality to keep your workmates and bosses updated on even the most granular project details. It would seem there will always be an importance to report project status and progress to PMs and Business Leaders, but I think that micro-blogging is a fantastic way to keep those who need to know what you’re up to. It also creates a certain sense of ownership and accountability. In the case of virtual collaboration, where I can’t just walk over to your cubicle, this could be the way to augment “watercooler” discussions. I’ll be interested to see how the enterprise handles this trend.
Some interesting info…
A sideways look at Twitter in the enterprise.
Some other contenders that are hustling right along with Twitter…
Live Blog with Traction Team Page- the demo video will quickly help you get your head around it.
Socialtext- the 60 second demo video also gets you up to speed quickly with the service.
Keith:
I think the key lies in the final comment of your post:
“I’ll be interested to see how the enterprise handles this trend.”
Most larger organizations don’t want internal data passing across public networks, so any such tool would need to be customized.
In many cases, large companies struggle with effective, efficient communication practices. Adding another mode of communication on top of email, land line voice mail, cell phone email, intranet posting, etc., will only add to the mess. However, if these new tools can simplify communications, it will be hard for enterprise to ignore.
For example, what if I could microblog to a “generic” corporate email address, where data could be compiled and put into a report? What if I could post an update via a twitter-like application that would automatically post my status to a team-project wiki-page? These tools could simplify my life. In it’s raw form, if I am getting a deluge of microblog posts, at the end of the day, I still need to sort out all of the messages and make sense of the results. One of my favorite examples of this type of simplification is being able to send an email to a specified address for my 37 Signals Backpack and have an attachment or calendar entry added based on the content of the note. That, my friend, is simple and helpful.
Getting away from the actual topic…How long will it take for 37Signals to create an enterprise version of their suite of apps that would allow a company keep all data internal? It can’t be that hard to do and much simpler for company to manage than to create anything similar from scratch…
David Say
November 30, 2008 at 9:31 pm
I’d imagine 37Signals has their eye on a corporate version. I can’t imagine it being that complicated to port into the Enterprise. That said, some corporations are Microsoft-focused, others are IBM shops, so their code would need to be able to run in their environments.
You’re correct in that the publicly available Web services are not appropriate for the enterprise.
You also bring up a good point. Do we really want to comb through a stack of Tweets or something like them? Maybe a good keyword search and “sort by” interface could help manage the micro messages???
slingthought
November 30, 2008 at 10:09 pm