We’re in a Book, Part 2

By Jake • Published on September 21st, 2009 • View Comments

You may recall part 1 of this series, where Rich is mentioned, along with his post on the IdeaFactory, in Niall Cook’s book Enterprise 2.0: How Social Software Will Change the Future of Work.
Now for part 2. Paul and I are quoted and Connect is covered in a soon to be released book called Social [...]

I Guess We’re a Product Team After All

By Jake • Published on May 8th, 2009 • View Comments

Well, our big redesign of Connect, version 4.0, is finally live. Anthony and Rich are knocking out some final issues, but we cut over earlier this afternoon.
Luckily, it’s the weekend. So, our users aren’t using right now.
Unluckily, it’s the weekend, and everyone on the team has plans.
Next week, I’ll fill you in on the new [...]

AppsLab FAQ: What if Someone Says Something Negative?

By Jake • Published on October 27th, 2008 • View Comments

It’s been a few months since I did an FAQ post. This one has been on my list of to dos for months, and since I’m not doing as much community management as I did in the past, I wanted to crank out a post before I forgot all the content.
The focus of this post [...]

The Wordle According to AppsLab

By Jake • Published on September 5th, 2008 • View Comments

Earlier this year, a friend of the ‘Lab, let’s call him Jim, asked me to open up email subscriptions for this little blog so he could consume his AppsLab goodness by email.
Through Jim’s crusading, we now have 17 subscribers by email. I think each of you should thank Jim with flowers or chocolates.
Anyway, Jim and [...]

AppsLab FAQ: How Do I Get People to Adopt?

By Jake • Published on August 7th, 2008 • View Comments

It’s been a while since I posted an FAQ entry. All the recent activity around iPhone information has reminded me of another one.
Adoption.
So, this FAQ installment is targeted at enterprise communities.
Now that Connect has groups, people are using it more frequently for centralized collaboration, which is exactly what we hoped. Generally, the person spearheading the [...]

AppsLab FAQ: Have You Spoken to HR, Legal and Security?

By Jake • Published on July 14th, 2008 • View Comments

Here comes another installment in my FAQ series. This one isn’t a question I get asked, but rather one I ask.
Inevitably, when you start a community or release an application to customers, you’ll need to make sure you’ve got the blessing of three groups within your company.

Human Resources
Legal
Security

In any size company, you’ll need to do [...]

AppsLab FAQ: How Do I Start a Community?

By Jake • Published on July 2nd, 2008 • View Comments

I’m sure Justin has tips on this one to add. Maybe he’ll chime in now that the Oracle blogs migration has ended; by the way, I’m really peeved that OraNA.info is clogged with reposts from Oracle blogs.
Not really, but it’s funny to me. Won’t someone please think of the children?
But I digress.
People frequently come to [...]

Podcast from Paul’s Panel at the Churchill Club

By Jake • Published on June 30th, 2008 • View Comments

Say that five times fast.
The podcast of Paul’s panel at the Churchill Club is available here, just in case you didn’t make it out to see him in person.

Thanks to Larry Dignan at Between the Lines and ZDNet for recording the panel discussion and posting the podcast. Note, the recording seems to be incomplete right [...]

AppsLab FAQ: How Do You Keep Track of All This Stuff?

By Jake • Published on June 26th, 2008 • View Comments

This is meant to be an open thread, even though I’m adding it to the FAQ series.
We’re all learning this Intertubes thing as we go along, so how do you keep track of it all? More accurately, how can you possibly listen in on all the relevant conversations and filter out noise?
Conversation topics could be [...]

AppsLab FAQ: What Do You Do at Oracle?

By Jake • Published on June 18th, 2008 • View Comments

Here’s another installment in my FAQ series.
I’ve always had trouble explaining what I do to non-technical people. It’s gotten better over the years, but it’s still a struggle to explain my job.
Usually, the conversation goes like this:
Q: What do you do for work?
A: I work for a big software company.
Q: Cool. What company?
A: Oracle.
Q: <Blank [...]

Find Paul at the Churchill Club on Tuesday, June 17

By Jake • Published on June 15th, 2008 • View Comments

Paul told me about this a while back, and Google just reminded me.

He will be speaking at the Churchill Club on Tuesday, June 17 at 7 PM. The session is called From Dilbert to Dude: Succeeding with Web 2.0 Within the Enterprise.
Moderating the panel is Forrester analyst and Groundswell co-author Charlene Li. Also speaking [...]

AppsLab: Year One

By Jake • Published on April 9th, 2008 • View Comments

A year ago was my first day at AppsLab. Paul and I huddled (virtually) to talk about plans for the team. It was exciting stuff. We had a unique opportunity to operate like a startup within the bowels of a huge corporation.

We had simple plans that I used a mnemonic device to remember, the three [...]