Learning the Ropes of Web 2.0

Final thoughts upon leaving Attensa

2006-08-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

Very soon I will be leaving Attensa to go back to college. This internship has been educational in ways that I did not expect, and as I start to pack up the things on my desk and prepare to move on, I had a couple of thoughts that I wanted to share.

On Attensa:
Attensa is a great company for two reasons: the people who work here really are passionate about building the best product possible, and the product is designed to make people best utilize and manage the ocean of information on the internet. Working for a startup is a learning process for everyone involved. Your job can look dramatically different from one day to the next, which makes the work new and exciting all the time. What has been different here than in other internships has been level of participation I have had. My boss recently confided, "I hope you know the impact you have had on the future of the company. We have all be learning together, and you have helped that learning process." At first I was taken aback when people such as the VP of Marketing started coming to me for advice. Here were people with vastly more experience wanting to know what I thought. That level of collaboration regardless of placement on the org chart has been astounding to me, and the benefits of collaboration will be reflected in the performance of the company.

On RSS:
RSS is an acronym that means nothing to most people. There are many people in the blogosphere that don't want to admit that, but it's true. Trying to make “RSS” go mainstream is like walking the streets in 1996 and telling people that there was this great internet structure called HTML. The average person would have just looked at you stupidly and moved on. What is cool about RSS is not what it is, but what it does. Tell people that they can get information they want sent to them, like thousands of little specialized electronic newsletters, and suddenly they’re listening. You have their Attention, no pun intended. RSS as a function speaks to people because it actually promises what innovation and technology promised them all along: the ability to make their lives easier. Combine RSS functionality with a well developed aggregator that includes Attention technology and they can actually save time. Personally I will be using Attensa when I go back to college, even when non-biased I'm confident that I want it over Newsgator.

On Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0:
I remember when I started work this summer I kept hearing these buzz words floating around the office like little opaque clouds. One day during my second week I was talking to Scott Niesen, who was expounding about Enterprise 2.0 and how exciting this movement was because Attensa harnesses this paradigm shift in how businesses work. All I remember thinking was, “What the hell is Enterprise 2.0?” It took a lot of reading and explanation before I could wrap my head around the whole concept. Leave it to someone from Harvard to develop a term that risks being exclusionary because the concept is so massive in scope. I'm waiting for Fake Steve Jobs to go after this ridiculous use of terminology.

On the Internet:
The internet is changing so many aspects of our lives, yet it is also a techno-cultural shift that can easily be taken for granted. My generation grew up alongside the internet and we live the concept of internet collaboration every day. Yet there is a new generation forming out there, made of people younger than I. A young generation made up of children that start playing educational videogames at the age of two. If business watchers out there think Generation M will shake up the business climate, just wait for kids that grow up on portable media, broadband internet and internet social networking from the neonatal stage. Businesses better be thinking today about how they are going to keep up with these communication trends tomorrow, because the lines between consumer habits and the business environment are blurring beyond recognition. I used to blog on livejournal three years ago, now I am blogging for business. Not only that, but in a bizarre twist I got a mention for my blog from Attensa's CEO. Thanks for the props Craig.

This has been quite the experience. I don't know if I will continue this business-related blog or not, but if you have subscribed to my feed don't be surprised to see updates in the future.
Until then...

The Web 2.0 Revolution It's Not... Try Evolution

2006-08-03T11:52:00.000-07:00

Reading my RSS feeds today on my "river of news" AttentionStream™ function in Attensa, I came across a blog that I found pretty interesting. I have become a big fan of the blog Confused Of Calcutta, but a particular blog entry caught my eye because it affirms my views of the so-called “technical generation gap.” I've been thinking about my response to it for a few days now.

As a member of Generation M (I have no idea who came up with this name), I have been shocked to see how my generation is often belittled or misrepresented. I recall reading articles in the past from supposedly prestigious news publications which have called the utilization of new technologies by Generation M as indicative of laziness, technological introversion, signs of a weak work ethic, or a culture with an attention-deficit disorder. The mischaracterization by the Times in London was to claim that members of Generation M and those who adopt new technologies are "deviants." Jerry Sternin, former Harvard Business School dean who is quoted in the article, concedes that people utilizing new technologies are "positive deviants," but apparently deviants none-the-less.

The reaction from Confused is spot on, don't call this a benevolent form of deviance:

Call it emergence. Call it democratised innovation. Call it something. Probably not even opensource any more, because the six-degrees-of-meaning approach has already connected opensource with pinko and lefty and rebel and deviant and counterculture.

Just don’t call it deviant.

Generation M is not innately rebellious or deviant or even countercultural. They have new tools they understand better than we do. They don’t have some of the shackles and frames and anchors and tunnel vision we have. And they are asking why? in a number of ways and in a number of places. And they need to be encouraged.

What the Times article misses, is what so the authors of many other articles (alluded to above) also fail to grasp. What they confidently think of as a bizarre anomaly is rapidly becoming our culture, not a counter-culture, and this quipped condescension will soon be drowned in a wave of young worker and consumer habits that will (hopefully) shake the foundations of a paradigm of business-as-usual.

To those early adopters who are not a part of Generation M, I salute you. New technologies that facilitate communication and collaboration through various web tools are sculpting a future where information exchange allows for increasing efficiency and innovation in the marketplace. Why Generation M has been targeted as the subject of interest for this “technology counter-culture” is beyond me. Teenagers and current college students did not write the code for MySpace, nor did they establish the framework for AIM, nor have they been working for the hundreds of companies, some large and some small, that are making the tools that have been lumped into this amorphous phenomenon called "Web 2.0".

This evolution in technology was inevitable; the web is anything but static. Perhaps this is why my friend Nick Johnson says that this new wave of technology is not a paradigm-shifting revolution, but rather it's an evolution of what constitutes "communication." People who engage in natural social evolution can't very well be deviants, they are just proponents of the future status quo. In the technological age, today’s “deviant” will be tomorrow’s visionary. Just ask Steve Jobs.

Attensa looks strong with Outlook 2007

2006-07-26T10:56:00.000-07:00

There has been a fair amount of chatter out in the blogosphere about how Attensa will respond to RSS functionality provided as part of Outlook 2007. I ended up writing such a long comment in one such blog by Shunjie that I though I would reproduce most of it here. I feel that Outlook 2007, rather than harm Attensa's value in the RSS reader marketplace, will only improve our position by raising awareness.

Saying that Outlook 2007's RSS functionality will satisfy an information worker is a little bit like claiming that a graphic artist will take the bare-bones functionality of Microsoft PhotoEditor over Adobe Photoshop. This is not to say that Microsoft's product is bad in any way, just that it isn't what a professional is looking for. A professional knowledge worker, be they a CIO, blogger or news reporter, wants customization, advanced search capabilities, the ability to get predictive rankings of their information so that they can get the best information quickly. Attensa 1.5 (beta) provides all of these functions and more. Outlook 2007 is also still in beta. When the final version of Outlook 2007 is released, Attensa will be able to integrate successfully with it and enhance the user's RSS experience. Attensa's CEO Craig Barnes has confirmed as much (see comment section).

In short, Attensa has provided a product that is much more than just an RSS aggregator. Our predictive AttentionStream™ technology is second to none, and our server appliance that was just recently released is turning heads in the corporate world. I would encourage anyone who is using another RSS aggregator or considering implementing one in their Enterprise to do a head-to-head comparison with that product and ours.

You just might be surprised…

Failure IS an option... but not likely

2006-07-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

There are times at a company when things get really exciting. Attensa has been hitting on all 12 cylinders the past few weeks, and we’ve just scratched the surface. After a remarkable showing at Supernova as a “Connected Innovator,” Attensa has gotten a sudden boost in street cred as TechCrunch, DL Byron and others have mentioned Attensa’s strength of presence in the marketplace. They have sounded the call. “Lookout! There is a new kid on the block.”

Competition is ultimately good for the future of RSS. The marketplace appears to dislike a monopoly on a user product (see Linux, Firefox, etc. gains on market share), but people do want to see a battle for quality and features. And users don't mind picking a favorite. At Attensa, we’re driven to make our Enterprise RSS products the best possible, and the knowledge that we have started as the underdog doesn’t appear to phase our corporate strategy a bit. With all the good press the company is getting, some may be wonder why Craig Barnes, CEO of Attensa, chose to ruminate on the practice of failure in his most recent blog. While noting the potential risks of Attensa’s business strategy, Craig is resolute:

I believe our investment in a true "platform" up front was the right move. I believe our early, deep work with massive quantities of transient meta-data we call "AttentionStreams" is a revolutionary development and will enable "game-changing" capabilities that will be extraordinarily difficult for our competitors to replicate.

As an intern it is interesting to watch the intrepid ‘pushing of the envelope at Attensa. Failure, as Craig’s blog suggests, is necessary because the risk is worth the potential reward. The international marketing firm, Wieden & Kennedy (also based in Portland), also prescribes to this theory with their corporate-wide slogan: “Fail Harder.”

I don’t see many failures on the horizon because the risks are already starting to pay off. There are exciting things to come in the near future, and those interested in how the “future of RSS” is being realized by our products in the present should keep their ears on the tracks over the next few weeks. The ‘A’ train is coming…

Still Hitting Walls: Is RSS Penned In?

2006-06-23T10:45:00.000-07:00

There have been two developments at work that have influenced my current belief that Web 2.0 technology is becoming both rapidly mainstream in popular internet culture and virtually unheard of in mass corporate culture:
1. Flock, a new browser who's beta version has just been released brings RSS and blogging together in a browser framework better than any other technology currently available.
2. My attempts to contact customers to excite (read inform) them about RSS technology has been increasingly frustrating (read hopeless).

We'll start at the good news as I am feeling particularly optimistic today (perhaps it is the fact that a terrorist plot was thwarted, or that it's Friday, or that I am getting a free lunch today). The good news comes from Flock, a browser that takes everything I loved about Firefox and supercharges it into the Web 2.0 age. Easier publishing to a blog: no problem, organization of RSS feeds: sure why not, making posting of picture and video content effortless: you bet. I have been using this thing five minutes and I'm already smitten.

And now for the frustration...

Perhaps it is the impatience that comes with youth, but the current disregard for the business potential of RSS technology is flabbergasting. I have talked to IT managers who have started using RSS Aggregators and products, but who fail to see any business application. WHAT! Is the thesis of the Cluetrain Manifesto dead! I know that the book version was published way back in 2000 and thus could be considered about as current as paleontology, but what has happened? Business is still unwilling to embrace the idea that a culture of communication is most beneficial to creativity and effectiveness.

I am trying to inform people about this tool from Attensa that is absolutely necessary for business. Should businesses what to capitalize on RSS technology? Yes. Should business support collaboration through wikis and other Enterprise 2.0 technology? I sure think so. Should IT departments realize the amazing potential of secure RSS feeds that could be read by an aggregator that puts that information right next to email in Outlook and on mobile devices? Absolutely.

Is there overwhelming business interest for this technology based on my experience? Not yet, but I'm waiting.
My shaken confidence is bolstered somewhat from mentions of the importance of Web 2.0 in mainstream media. Business Week and other major business publications are starting to wake up to the inevitable reality. My hope is that companies will soon follow.

Young workers unite... under new technology

2006-06-14T08:22:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the most compelling reason to implement Enterprise 2.0 technology is the fact that young, future workers have been embracing new technology that the corporate world is slow to implement. Instant Messaging (IM) was begun as a teen phenomena, so too with the embrace of personal webspace that has started the Facebook and MySpace trend. For those grown up on these electronically communicative venues, the shift to corporate blogs and wikis should be fairly seamless. Teenagers and college students around the country are already communicating through these new technologies, finding the multitasking approach of using information search and online communication as very beneficial to get tasks done. It is important to note that for the 25-and-under crowd, these technologies aren't being used solely by the archetypal "techno-geek." New communication mediums are becoming as much a staple for teenagers as iPods or cell phones.

One service used at my college is the an online "Course Management System (CMS)" known as Blackboard, where professors can post due dates for papers and tests. Students have a space where they can collaborate using the product's comment boards, and a question and answer section allows direct communication with professors. From the rudimentary beginnings we see today, the future begins to take shape. Wikis and corporate blogs facilitating both top-down and collaborative communication to a corporate organizational structure. Podcasting can enable managers to disseminate en masse new business strategies. Podcasting is already starting to be used by my generation, as video blogging becomes the new way to communicate to friends and family.

The embrace of new communication technology by my generation should be of special interest to managers across the corporate spectrum. Companies that embrace these new modes of communication will undoubtedly see greater efficiency and profitability, while also providing forums where creativity is fostered regardless of organization position within the company.

The First Week in RSS Land

2006-06-09T14:35:00.000-07:00

First, the brief personal bio: I am a young, 21 year old college student interning for the summer at a tech company developing RSS technology.

As most people currently writing about RSS tech appear to be 30+, I thought I would take on the burdensome and unrealistic task of representing a whole new generation of soon-to-be employees/managers/CEOs. This blog will be part personal journal, part corporate propaganda (I'm giving the heads up now), and part personal speculation as to how Web 2.0 technologies will fare in the future.

I have just started working for a company which produces an RSS aggregator, known as Attensa. Nine days ago I was unaware of what RSS was. Imagine my shock when I discovered that I had been using a RSS format for three years on Livejournal, a blogging service put out by SixApart.

Neither mass media nor popular culture has brought the concept of "RSS" to the masses, but blogging specifically is starting to catch on. When I noticed a few months ago that Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News had started a blog, it became apparent that even the old school were catching on. The more I learn the more I realize that corporate blogging, wikis and other Web 2.0 technology really are the way of the future. Corporate giants like Sandy Weil (former head of Citigroup) and Henry Ford (Ford Motor Corp) followed one basic premise: maximizing efficiency allows you to outpace your competitors and achieve market dominance.

In the 21st Century, efficiency will rely on effective sharing of information. Collaboration must be instaineous and decisions must be made immediately based on the most up-to-date information at the time. No longer can companies afford to be isolated from their larger markets, drafting products in seclusion. The pace of markets, even beyond the tech market, is growing ever quicker. To many familiar with RSS, this is nothing new, but to me the opportunities that exist with Web 2.0 technologies are pretty new and exciting. Even for a young (but apparently RSS seasoned) intern like me.