What’s so great about Twitter?

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Business, Collaboration

I’ve been telling a lot of people about twitter lately, so I thought I’d broach the topic as to what makes Twitter so great.

For me, Twitter has been WAY more effective in helping me find and connect with individuals with similar interests than anything else. More effective than if I had actually been looking for them.

That’s part of the beauty of Twitter. It happens organically. I am constantly finding more people to follow that “speak my language”, and/or are interested in the same things I am.

There is minimal effort involved in the beginning, but once you start following a few people, you tend to just naturally find additional people to follow that add value. One thing I would suggest is to browse who other people are following, and check them out as well. I’ve found lots of great new people to follow this way.

I was definitely a naysayer at first, but this article was what caused me to give Twitter a second look and actually try it out:

Ten Questions with Chris Brogan – http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/09/ten-questions-w.html

Also, if there is one person I would suggest you follow to start, follow Chris Brogan. Check out his blog as well. Fantastic stuff. Definitely one of my favorite reads online.

Here’s an additional link to a good post about how twitter improved Truemors:

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/10/how-twitter-mad.html

And a post with a link to a research report by Forrester on “microblogging” (PAID):

http://blogs.forrester.com/marketing/2007/10/i-just-dont-get.html

Of course, you can follow me on Twitter as well at: http://twitter.com/kliza23

RivalMap – Time to start managing your competitive information!

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Business, Collaboration, Management

Last week RivalSoft launched RivalMap, a collaborative web based solution for managing competitive information.

I’ve used Competitious on and off over the past year, and it’s a great tool. Though, as stated in this Competitious blog post,”Competitious is a great way to quickly list your competition, and start finding news and traffic stats about them, but RivalMap is focused on what happens next.”

RivalMap is definitely a much more robust and feature rich solution. It has a beautiful user interface, and it maintains the same level of excellent usability and simplicity amidst a great deal more features. Anyone familiar with Basecamp will be right at home with RivalMap, as it has a very similar look and feel.

The beauty of RivalMap is that is provides your team a central place for MANAGING competitive information, not just storing it. I’ve seen companies “manage” their competitive information by sending around emails of press releases to different people throughout the organization, or creating a wiki, or at the most sophisticated level, by setting up a project within their internal project management system where they post information about competitors. However, all of these approaches fall FAR short of what RivalMap allows you to do.

RivalMap serves as that central place for all competitive info, but it also provides you with the tools to actually organize, and manage competitive information and begin to formulate strategies to address competitive threats. It allows you to build comparison grids (company and product comparison), easily associate links to news articles, build out a full SWOT analysis, and lots more. It even lets you segment out the distinct verticals in which you compete, and track all the way down to your competitors’ individual customers!

The one thing I was disapointed to see missing was the ability for the software to search for, and suggest links and articles, that are related to ones competitors. This was a very nice feature of competitious. However, it was mentioned in the competitious blog that they are planning on adding a similar feature to RivalMap, and potentially integration with third-party information services.

I would also like to have the ability to have my google alerts and similar services automatically parsed, and applied to the appropriate competitor’s profile.

All in all, I’m VERY impressed.

Their website is also very good in terms of clearly stating the benefits and features of the product, and with a completely free account for up to 3 users, it’s a no brainer to at least try it out.

You can also check out the RivalMap blog, and there is a great discussion over at TechCrunch as well.

Keep up the great work RivalSoft!

Game Changing Business Application Design…Anywhere?

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Business, Collaboration, SaaS

One of the things I’ve been thinking about more and more lately, is somehow enabling the next generation user experience for business software.

For far too long, business applications have been built for businesses, not for the people in the businesses that use them.

Rather than approaching the design with the goal of enabling the best, most enjoyable experience for the individual, many ISVs have kept their designs inside the box, and focused solely on the needs of the business.

I may be missing something (and I’m sure I’ve not seen nearly everything), but I’ve yet to see an application that really breaks the mold. One that presents data in a totally new way, or enables a totally new experience for the user. Or one that incorporates some level of fun and enjoyment in the mundane tasks of creating service tickets, accounts, invoices, activity notes, meetings…etc.

If we look at sites/apps such as facebook, twitter, youtube and others, the sites that’s user bases have grown virally at an incredible pace, the three words that immediately come to mind are: personal, networked, and addictive

Personal – All of the above sites present information to the user that is personal and important to the individual user. This is similar to dashboards we see in many business apps. However, that is one single place in the application that is personal. Some applications also provide themes, but not to the extent that some of the social networkings sites provide customization of the overall look.

Networked – All of the above are web based applications, that leverage their network of users to create their core value. This is something I’ve written about in the past, and now Salesforce is just beginning to take this to the next level with their new Salesforce-to-Salesforce capabilities.

Addictive – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube… they are all addictive. They have something that makes people want to use them. However, that something can be different for different people, but I venture to say that what ever that something is, it is a direct result of those applications leveraging the network of users as the underlying core value of their offering.

Aside from Salesforce’s recent moves, another great example that is more on the design side is Entellium, and their Rave CRM product. Paul Johnston, Entellium’s CEO talks about the “Gamer Influenced Design” approach here on his blog.

Phil Wainewright also talks about Rave, and the concept of gaming elements applied to business software here.

I’d love to hear what others think, and if you can point me in the direction of some applications that you think are truly breaking the mold, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Innovative Management: A conversation with Gary Hamel and Lowell Bryan

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Business, Collaboration, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Management

I read an amazing interview with Gary Hamel and Lowell Bryan yesterday. It was one of those articles where I was constantly saying to myself things like: exactly!, that’s amazing!, thats exactly what I said to _______!, etc.

Reading it made me really excited. So much so that I immediately started talking to, and calling friends of mine, probably babbling because I was so taken up by it. I sat at home last night reading parts of the interview to my wife as we sat trying to relax in our living room.

It made me really excited because this is something I am very passionate about. It’s something that I have very strong feelings about, and in this interview I saw my own passions and positions clearly shared by others that are truly thought leaders in the space of management.

Innovative Management: A conversation with Gary Hamel and Lowell Bryan

Please, take the time to read this interview and share with me your thoughts. If you aren’t a member at the McKinsey Quarterly this is more than enough reason to join. (IT’S FREE!)

The basic premise of the discussion is that there is an ever growing need for a new managerial model, that merits the gifts of creativity, passion, and initiative and leverages those gifts in each and every employee.

Here’s just a small sample:

“In terms of managing creative-thinking people, you have to separate the work of managing from the notion of managers as a distinct and privileged class of employees. Highly talented people don’t need, and are unlikely to put up with, an overtly hierarchical management model.

Increasingly, the work of management won’t be done by managers. It will be pushed out to the periphery. It will be embedded in systems. I think we’re on the verge of what I would call a postmanagerial society. The idea that you mobilize human labor through a hierarchy of overseers and bureaucrats and administrators is going to look extraordinarily antiquated a decade or two from now.”

Also, if you haven’t read my post from a few months back entitled: Creating a Culture of Innovation: The SANE Approach, I’m sure you will see many parallels.

John Moore posted a great overview of Gary Hamel’s new book, The Future of Management.

Tory Gattis of OpenTeams also posted some additional excerpts from the interview here as well.

Coghead and BT Partnership

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Business, Collaboration, SaaS

Yesterday, Coghead announced a partnership with BT.

This could be huge for Coghead, depending on the true depth of the partnership.

As mentioned before by Sinclair over at SaaSBlogs, telcos could play a huge role in driving SaaS adoption. Smart SaaS ISV’s should be looking today, to partner with telcos in new and innovative ways.

If SaaS ISV’s think of their applications as the services that they are, telecommunications companies provide the “pipes” that their services are delivered through.

Telcos also have relationships with VARs, IT Service providers, customers and potential customers of ISVs, both through the services they are already delivering to them (internet access, telephone service, etc.), as well as the services that they are delivering to ISV’s customers’ customers (whether at the business or consumer level).

Coghead being a toolkit and environment for developers to build applications with, can now provide additional incentive to would be developers. That incentive being the immediate access to a significant sales and marketing channel via BT. Again, the level of access will depend on the depth of the partnership that BT and Coghead develop.

I’ll be interested to see where they take this partnership.

I expect we will begin see more partnerships like this one, and the Jamcracker XO partnership announced earlier this year.

Thoughts?

Creating a Culture of Innovation (Series)

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Business, Collaboration, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Management

In my upcoming series of posts entitled “Creating a Culture of Innovation”, I plan to discuss a number of ways that I believe organizations can radically change the way in which they operate by making innovation a cultural trait rather than something they strive for artificially.

To begin, I will introduce an approach I’ve come up with called the “SANE” approach to innovation.

Stay tuned…