For the second year in a row, Traction Software’s TeamPage Enterprise Blog was named one of KMWorld’s Trend Setting Products of 2005. KMWorld Wrote:

In a curious sense, the list below indicates that knowledge management has matured. We have long contended that KM is an attitude, not an application, and the flexibility of the software on the list further proves it. You’ll notice, of course, common themes in our selections. Content management (in its broadest sense) is well represented. You will certainly see a number of search-related solutions. Business process management is another “category” that crops up regularly, as does collaboration.

The common thread running through all the products listed below is the unique value - and potential value - they offer the organization, its workers and their various constituencies. Not all have been implemented exclusively in business-related environments. Nor were all introduced in 2005; some were launched later last year but are now demonstrating their value to customers. And, in many cases, it is precisely the vision of customers who implemented the products that qualifies them as trend- setting by opening markets not originally considered by the vendor. We have also identified products that have yet to gain traction, but we believe they may. It would be presumptuous to suggest anything other than that the market will ultimately decide.

Original source and full list.

On Hans on Experience, you can find the list of employees who have public blogs, at:

• Yahoo! and Google
• Microsoft

Another list of Google employees blogs and Yahoo! employees blogs…

Via BlogWrite for CEOs.

Businesses are learning they can’t ignore bloggers. A positive mention in a well-read blog can spike sales and cred, while bloggers can be meaner than a middle-school clique if they disapprove of a company or product — or its blog.

At the Blog Business Summit, held in San Francisco on Thursday and Friday, corporate communications pros and public relations account execs gathered to grok the rules of engagement with the blogosphere.

Read more…

What’s the hottest brand on the Web these days? The orange RSS icon.

Take a look at the online sites of any major media company. You will see hundreds of these icons offering RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, which is a way to get information sent to you, such as articles, classified ads (say from Craigslist.com), hotel schedules or even audio files (or podcasts).

Read more…

Via Micro Persuasion.

Michael Angeles, Lucent / Bell Labs made a presentation at the American Society for Information Science & Technology, New Jersey Chapter, on May 20, 2005:

Michael is a Lucent Bell Lab employee who was the technical lead for deployment of Traction Software at Lucent. The project involved co-ordination and training and world-wide rollout for a new Lucent ERP system.

On slide #27 (in the comments) of his presentation [PPT, 4.1Mb] you can read about the reasons why Traction TeamPage is so attractive for sophisticated uses and some other reasons why at Lucent Bell Lab they are pushing for Traction Software.

He also published some of the questions that were raised during his presentation.

More than anything, web 2.0 expresses a sense that the character of the internet is undergoing a radical shift. There is further evidence for this in the proliferation of new jargon, some of which is even becoming known to non-geeks. Examples are “blog” and “podcast”, both of which count as web 2.0 technologies.

Read more…

More links about web 2.0.

Knowledge management solutions are now the most important strategic technologies for large companies, according to a new report and survey of European executives by the Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by Tata Consultancy Services. In the survey, 67% of companies cite knowledge management/business intelligence solutions as important to achieving their strategic goals over the next three years. This compares with 63% that accord the same level of importance to new CRM solutions, and 35% that see mobile/wireless technology as vital.

Read more…

Via Rencontres KM&EC 2005.

Journalists read blogs for source information. It’s part of how their job is done these days. And, as David Sifry reports, the influence of blogs is beginning to compare with that of MSM.

Is what’s true of journalists also true of business people? Is reading blogs just a waste of time or could we too consider it time well spent in terms of gleaning needed, even vital information? I prefer to believe the latter, as does Inc.com blogger Hillary Johnson.

Read more…

Via The eStrategyOne Buzz.

Whether the company is a traditional bricks and mortar business, an online business venture, or both, a business blog can pay huge dividends for any business bottom line.

The benefits are numerous, ranging from improved search engine rankings, to better customer relations, to more effective public relations, to ever more powerful marketing. Blogging succeeds in all of these areas. We all know those blog advantages to be true.

Read more…

After Vespaway, here comes Vespaquest, the second customer blog for Vespa USA - the popular Italian scooter manufacturer.

Like Vespaway before it, Vespaquest is written by two blogging consumers.

Read more…

In August 1991, Sir Tim Berners-Lee created the first website. Fourteen years on, he tells BBC Newsnight’s Mark Lawson how blogging is closer to his original idea about a read/write web.

Read more…

Via pointblog.com.

Blogging as a job has emerged as companies of all stripes increasingly see the Web as an important communications venue. Blogs allow firms to assume a natural tone rather than the public relations-speak typical of some static Web pages, and readers are often invited to post comments. While some companies are hiring full-time bloggers, others are adding duties to marketing or Web positions.

Read more…

Via Micro Persuasion: Chief CIO Advocate and Sun advisor Bill Howard conducts a wide-ranging interview with two of Sun’s top thought leaders on blogging, Tim Bray and Simon Phipps. It’s a good backgrounder for anyone thinking about launching a corporate blog.

I believe that we are in a society which has been transformed by the availability of Internet connectivity. There was a seminal book published right at the beginning of this millennium called the Cluetrain Manifesto. The authors asserted that we are right on the pivotal edge of a shift from an industrial age to a “participation age,” where instead of messaging we have narratives, instead of marketing we have conversations, and instead of consumerism we have participation.

In the participation age, the right way to tell people about how great your company is is to get the people who are making your company great to tell how they are doing it. So, the obvious thing to do is get your staff to tell their narratives from their perspectives, and that’s what blogging is.

Read more…

IBM is starting an investor relations podcast by sending out audio files of investor relations statements direct to subscribers’ PCs so that they can listen on their PC or iPods. And because its a podcast, you get it as soon as its out, and it downloads itself onto your iPod.

The first podcast starts a unique audio series entitled “IBM and the Future of…” on key business and technology topics. The RSS feed is: http://www.ibm.com/investor/ibm_ir_podcast.xml.

This is not their first move into podcasting - the IBM Systems and Technology Group, for instance, already podcasts.

Via Drew B’s take on tech PR, iaocblog and NevOn.

NewsGator Technologies introduced Enterprise Server on Thursday, a business-class application for enabling RSS content delivery behind the firewall.

The product includes the NewsGator RSS reader and optional integration with Microsoft Outlook to deliver feeds into that e-mail application. The application syncs across multiple interfaces so that if someone reads a feed on the Web, it’s marked as read whether the person next signs in to NewsGator from a mobile device or the desktop.

Read more…

Via InformationWeek:

Businesses are taking a cue from bloggers with a new way of distributing information. The appeal: It’s really simple.

In a world of content overload–with E-mail always pushing information and thousands of Web sites pulling us–more people are using RSS readers to cope. The grassroots technology, used for the past few years by bloggers and news junkies, is finding a place in business-computing environments as a fast and easy way to channel information to customers, employees, and partners. It’s also catching on as a cheap but effective approach to application integration.

[...]

The Integrated Justice Information Systems Institute, whose members are IT companies that support law-enforcement and Justice Department operations, uses RSS and Atom feeds that came built into its blogging software from Traction Software Inc. to keep committee members up to date on recent developments. “Some of our more technical committees that had some familiarity with RSS saw immediately how they could use that inside their workspace to provide a publish-and-subscribe capability so they don’t have to rely on going hunting to see if there’s something new in their committee work,” executive director Paul Wormelli says.

Read more…