Ryan Nichols's Most Recent Posts

Have you ever been to a technology conference where the technology wasn't the most interesting part? That was my experience last week at the Enterprise 2.0 conference, in Santa Clara. Seven years after we first started using the term "Enterprise 2.0," the most interesting content at the conference was about how this type of technology is both enabled by, and enabling, new ways of managing, measuring, and motivating people.

I spent the last couple of days at a high energy gathering of the Small Business Web, an organization dedicated to helping small businesses grow through an expanding network of integrated Web applications. The idea is that small pieces of software, loosely joined together, will unleash the same sort of innovation for small businesses that the so called "Open Web" has brought to consumers. Contrast this vision with today's reality of providing large enterprises with on-premise software: my years in that industry convinced me that the dominance of these "Enterprise Suites" has cost us at least 10 years of innovation in the enterprise software industry. Why? Here are just three key differences between Enterprise Suites and the Small Business Web.

What's most important about work? Is it the tasks we're trying to get done, the people we're trying to get them done with, the documents we use to record our progress, or the data that these documents contain? Or is there something that brings all these together? Each implies a very different approach to work, and it's worth looking at each in turn.

I was provoked by a fascinating interview last week on TechCrunch with Justin Rosenstein, the former Facebook developer now trying to enter the world of business productivity tools. In that interview, he makes an argument that tasks are the center of work.

Like many of you, I just spent the last few hours trying to make some headway on my email inbox, the only 40 year old technology still at the heart of my work day. What better way to relaunch this blog on “the future of work,” I thought, than with some reflections on what work was like in the days before email.

I had the privilege of being asked to join a fantastic panel at SIIA's "All About Mobile" conference yesterday with some leading application developers making the switch to mobile. I was joined by David Fulton of Right Now, Jason Prater of Plex Systems, and Dan Miller of INgage Networks. We were moderated by Anshu Agrawal, VP Marketing at Keynote Systems, who asked us a set of questions that are top of mind for any application developer thinking about mobile apps.

SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, and the other legacy CRM gorillas shared their vision for Sales 2.0 with the world yesterday, at the Sales & Marketing 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. My beef? We're talking about all the right ideas, built on exactly the wrong technology. SAP is a great example. During the Q&A, one SAP customer in the audience summed up the experience of many: "It's been a disaster," she said of their SAP implementation.

Gartner released its 2010 "Hype Cycle" report, identifying cloud computing as "at the peak of inflated expectations." It's clear that expectations around cloud computing are huge. But if you approach cloud computing with a business-case driven roadmap, and focus on the services provided by public cloud leaders, disillusionment isn't inevitable. Here's a tongue-in-cheek top 5 list of the things I think you'll actually be disappointed in as you do more in the public cloud.

One of the highlights of last week's "Cloud Leadership Summit" (which I started to cover in Tuesday's post) was the opportunity to hear from leading practitioners of cloud computing-- CIOs who have made big bets on the cloud. When you think of the type of companies that are moving their IT aggressively in the cloud, you probably don't picture companies like Brady or RehabCare....

Last week, I was flattered to help host over 100 leading cloud providers, consumers, and thought leaders for a "Cloud Leadership Summit" in San Francisco. I wanted to start by exploring a concept presented by one of the keynote speakers-- Daryl Plummer, Chief Gartner Fellow. The concept is a cloud service brokerage, which he calls "the single largest revenue growth opportunity in cloud computing, bar none."

I came back from my summer break to an avalanche of cloud computing facts and figures in my inbox. There are dozens of cloud computing forecasts and predictions out there, but its sometimes a challenge to figure out what they all actually mean.

Now that Microsoft has finally embraced cloud computing and taken a version of its flagship Office suite online, pundits have started to question whether Google "has what it takes" to compete in the enterprise.

Joining us for our discussion on the "path to cloudsourcing" last week was an audience of 80 IT decision makers and influencers interested in cloudsourcing. Our interaction with these cloudsourcing candidates gave us some insight into the leading edge of cloud adoption.

I was excited to host Mark Newhall for a webinar last week on the "Path To Cloudsourcing." Mark is an expert at corporate transformation, often-times powered by cloud technology. Our discussion focused on building, executing and measuring the success of a comprehensive cloud strategy. Here are some highlights from our conversation...

Yesterday I attended salesforce.com's "Cloudforce" event for the official launch of "Chatter," their new social networking functionality for the enterprise. Chatter moves collaboration from the software as a service "layer" of the cloud to the platform as a service layer, with several key implications for the enterprise.

The breakout session on cloud security at this week's Cloud Leadership Forum skipped the hype and the FUD and dove right into the real issue at the core of most conversations around cloud adoption -- the tension felt by IT organizations who are being asked to sign up for a security and performance outcome that they no longer feel in control over as they move to the public cloud.