Online Experience Optimization: The Next "Big Idea" in the Cloud

Every modern business does business online. This means that every modern business decision maker needs the answers to five key questions.

1. Do we know what customers, competitors and competitors' customers are saying about our company online?
2. Do we know that every online interaction with our company is equally compelling, fluid, frictionless and fulfilling, regardless of the user's device or connection type?
3. Do we know what colleagues, customers, partners and prospects really think about doing business with us online, especially compared with other companies?
4. Do we have solid, defensible evidence for all that we know or think that we know?
5. Can we act on what we know in ways that help our business to succeed and grow?

To be able to answer these questions with confidence, business decision makers must integrate multiple previously separate initiatives ranging from content management and social networking to analytics and infrastructure management. Here's a high-level look at just some of the elements involved in every user's online experience with a company – such as yours.

• The user's access device – whether PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone.
• The network connection – whether wireless or wired, dial-up or broadband, etc.
• The company's Web site or sites (and the equivalent portal or portals for internal users).
• The content displayed by the Web site and/or internal portal.
• The tools used to create, edit, curate and manage that content.
• The tools used to measure and analyze all aspects of the online experience, from the performance of the Web site to who's accessing which content how often – plus more.

A holistic view of these and other relevant elements is essential to achieving a critical goal of every modern business: online experience optimization (OEO), for both external and internal constituencies.

The perceptions of those "from without," including competitors, customers, influencers, partners, and prospects, directly affect multiple human factors that in turn directly affect revenues, profits and competitive positioning. The perceptions of those "from within" affect things like employee job satisfaction, loyalty, referrals of superior new employees and overall business agility and responsiveness.

OEO touches every aspect of every type and size of company that does business online or plans to do so. Business stakeholders include advertising, marketing, public relations, sales, internal and external support teams and business performance decision makers, among others.

Technologies involved range from Web site construction and management tools to content management systems, analytics tools and support for “the mobile, social cloud.” Example relevant vendors include IT stalwarts such as Adobe, IBM, Oracle and SAP, disruptive upstarts such as Consona, Medallia, Nimble and Zoho and even so-called "digital agencies" such as 311 Media and Surge.

OEO is clearly a "big idea" that demands immediate and sustained attention from business and technology decision makers – and from the vendors hoping to sell to them. And based on the initial findings of continuing OEO surveys, that attention is needed now.

When asked to rate their companies' abilities to know and respond to what's being said about those companies online, only 18.5 percent of respondents chose "Excellent." Some 44.4 percent chose "Good," while approximately one-third said their companies were "Fair" (22.2 percent) or "Unsatisfactory" (11.1 percent) at this critical OEO element.

Respondents were also asked when they believe that decision makers at their companies will start to collect and act upon what's being said about them online. Approximately one-third of respondents expect this to happen within the next six months. But a quarter of respondents don't expect it to happen within the next year, and 41.7 percent said they didn't know when it might happen.

I'll have lots more to say about OEO here and elsewhere, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, you can take those surveys I mentioned in approximately three minutes each, anonymously if you prefer, and request summary findings at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JJVTC6J and
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WFCM2KR. Thanks for your help – please tell everyone you know!

SafePeak: Faster SQL Server Applications, On the Ground and In the Cloud

"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." -- legendary U.S. baseball catcher and malapropism master Yogi Berra (who also reportedly said "I really didn't say everything I said.")

What happens when a business application is a victim of its own success?
To deliver maximum business value, applications need users. But too many users, and applications can slow down or stop altogether. Which can mean anything from non-productive workers to suddenly former customers, depending on the applications.

For the millions of Microsoft Windows applications (including Web sites and SharePoint collaboration tool deployments) that rely upon Microsoft's SQL Server database software, there are a few alternative ways to speed up and scale out. One is to acquire more processing and storage capacity, but that gets expensive and difficult to manage quickly.

Another is traditional application caching -- extracting smaller, faster subset copies of the most-used data from larger, slower databases. But traditional caching methods can be difficult to implement without requiring changes to applications, databases or both. And analyzing and determining precisely where to apply caching and where not to apply it can take months. Also, some caching solutions are vulnerable to creating out-of-synch copies of critical data, especially in response to a system failure or disruption.

Another performance improvement method is called "database tuning." There are applications that purport to ease and speed this process. But there's no avoiding that it takes time to analyze current application performance, and money to engage the expertise necessary to decide precisely what to tune and how to tune it.

SafePeak (www.safepeak.com) offers an alternative with some compelling differences. First of all, it's software that runs on exactly the same types of hardware on which SQL Server and many of those database applications are running. SafePeak can even run on cloud-based virtual server instances or hosted servers. And SafePeak is designed specifically to be "plug-and-play" with all Windows and SQL Server environments, including custom-built, hosted and cloud-based applications.

Once SafePeak is installed and running, it basically "watches" and "listens to" an application for a couple of hours, and begins to learn and map the queries and dependencies that govern how that application accesses and uses data. SafePeak uses this information to cache data dynamically, in ways that speed performance significantly while avoiding inaccurate or out-of-synch copies of data.

SafePeak was also designed specifically to support business-critical applications that simply cannot fall victim to incorrect data. The solution is being used to make Web sites, SharePoint deployments and financial services, health care management and hospital knowledge management applications run faster and support more users.

The SafePeak management interface is Web-based and straightforward. In addition, the software generates considerable information about how SQL Server databases and applications perform "in real life." This information can help application and database administrators and their teams to identify and pursue additional opportunities to improve application performance, reliability and scalability.

If your company uses SQL Server databases and applications, including Web sites, SharePoint or Microsoft Dynamics, you should look closely at SafePeak. You can download a free trial of the software at the company's Web site, and begin test-driving it with your own applications. And if you're running most or all of your critical applications in the cloud or some other company's hosting facility, talk with your provider(s) about test-driving SafePeak for themselves. It won't solve all application performance challenges. But it can do a lot to improve performance of those applications reliant upon Microsoft SQL Server, rapidly, affordably and transparently -- wherever those applications may run.

Cloud Extend for Salesforce: Jedi Mind Tricks for More and Better Sales

In the very first "Star Wars" movie to be commercially released (as opposed to the first episode in the saga, which was the fourth movie to be released, I think -- but I digress), the first Jedi mind trick shown was Jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi getting a security droid to replace what it was planning to say with what Obi-Wan wanted the droid to say. ("These are not the droids you're looking for.") No muss, no fuss -- the security droid just followed the script the Jedi wrote for him, word for word, with no objections, and the process of escape proceeded according to Obi-Wan's plan.

Would that salespeople were as easily manipulated. Once an Obi-Wan had been identified, he or she could write the script, then distribute it to all of their colleagues, who would follow it perfectly and generate more sales faster than ever before.

If this scenario appeals to you, you should take a look at Cloud Extend for Salesforce, introduced by Active Endpoints at the Dreamforce conference/revival meeting/festival in San Francisco last week.

Here's what Cloud Extend for Salesforce let you do. And by "you," I mean "almost any sales manager or other business-savvy decision maker unafraid to perform basic editing tasks on a typical modern networked computing device. You know, like with a Web browser." You can create guides -- step-by-step recipes for specific sales-related tasks, such as lead nurturing. Active Endpoints calls these "guidance trees," and that's an apt visual description. Remember flowcharts? They look a bit like those, only sideways. They result in scripts users can be instructed to follow explicitly or to treat as suggestions, depending on the sophistication of the user being guided.

You can then easily add specific Salesforce.com actions to specific steps in each script. You can then publish the script, which each user can access and follow from within the already-comfortable Salesforce.com interface. Without leaving the specific task that user is doing. And the scripts capture all kinds of useful information about how well the scripts and their users perform.

Sales managers can build customized scripts that automate and help to improve key business processes. Users get scripts to follow based on proven processes and practices. The adoption and business value of Salesforce.com increases. And little to no IT involvement is required.

If your company uses or is considering using Salesforce.com to support sales efforts, you must look closely at Cloud Extend for Salesforce. Active Endpoints boasts that the solution can "make every sales rep your best rep." If you add Cloud Extend for Salesforce to a well-working Salesforce.com environment and use the information produced to improve and extend your sales processes, that boast will prove true. And likely encourage you to explore opportunities for similar successes beyond sales. As I'm sure Active Endpoints is doing even as you read this…

Sococo: Real Teamwork in Real Time, in the Cloud

When Gene Roddenberry created the original "Star Trek" television series, he was adamant that the starship Enterprise be big enough to hold hundreds of people. Why? Because then it would be like a street, a large dormitory or an office. A random walk could lead to an unexpected adventure, conversation or great idea.

That's really the only remaining justification for making people come to a common workplace anymore. But it's a powerful justification -- one that's been impossible to replicate faithfully online until Sococo.

I could spend thousands more words, most of which you'd probably skim or skip, trying to explain what makes Sococo so cool, special and fraught with implications for cloud computing and collaboration. Instead, let me try to summarize just enough to get you to try it out.

With Sococo, your computer screen, and that of each of your teammates, is transformed into what looks like an overhead view of the layout of a set of offices, complete with a lobby, conference rooms and common areas, if you want. You can see everyone, know their status, arrange and hold formal meetings and engage in informal spontaneous collaborations. You can also share computer screens and put other applications from the Web, the cloud or elsewhere up on "walls" visible to everyone at your meeting. Oh, and you can communicate via voice or typed on-screen chat, public or private. All within a single interface you can learn well enough to teach others in about the time it'll likely take you to finish reading this blog post.

Neither too many more words nor even a screen shot can do Sococo justice. A poke around the company Web site will help, but only a little. What you need to do is to sign up for the free trial, download the Sococo client software and invite two, three or more colleagues to join your "team." Doesn't matter where they are as long as they have Web access. In less than 30 minutes, you'll start thinking about more and more ways you can use Sococo, in concert with and instead of almost all of the communication and collaboration tools you're using right now.

Sococo adds to online, location-independent collaboration almost everything that's good and useful about collaborating in a shared physical space in real time. Especially including opportunities for spontaneous, ad hoc collaboration, idea germination and cross-pollination. And it enables a level of social interaction among collaborators I've never seen done quite as well online. And I'll wager it looks almost nothing like any cloud-based collaboration tool you're using now. Check it out, and do let me know what you think.

The Future of Cloud Computing: Extreme Personalization and VMware's Project Horizon

The future of cloud computing is not the public cloud, the private cloud or hybrid clouds. Such discussions focus too much on delivery methodologies and not enough on what users care most about: access to the resources they need to do what they want and need to do.

From that perspective, the future is one of extreme personalization. Each authorized user only wants to see what they want and need to do their jobs well and successfully, on whichever device or devices they happen to have. And each user wants this regardless of which particular part of any particular cloud happens to host each resource each user wants and needs.

No pressure. But no company can or should attempt to promise or deliver such personalization without adequate management and security. For that way lies madness, or at least some very likely corporate leadership changes.

Here's an example of how to achieve extreme personalization while avoiding potentially career-limiting decisions: VMware's Project Horizon. The goal: managed, secure access to any authorized application or resource, by any authorized user, from any supported device. The first stages: VMware's Horizon App Manager, plus the company's acquisitions of SlideRocket (cloud-based presentations), Zimbra (cloud-based, enterprise-class e-mail) and most recently, SocialCast (cloud- or premise-based, enterprise-class collaboration).

The still-evolving VMware solution set enables users to see "storefront-like" portals for access to the applications for which they are authorized, while enabling corporate IT departments to control said access at pretty granular levels, and to extend incumbent security models to embrace cloud-based resources. Users get extreme personalization, while IT gets to sleep more soundly and spend more weekends away from the office or the data center.

Other vendors, notably Google, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP, are working on and/or promising and/or delivering slivers of similarly promising approaches to extreme personalization. Expect to see more and more offerings from more and more vendors, promising to combine simplified user access to cloud- and premise-based business resources with truly effective management and security. Fortunately, VMware has the pedigree and deep pockets necessary to establish a significant "first/early mover" advantage, and to give business decision makers solution elements with which they can and should start exploring extreme personalization now.

RIM's PlayBook: Four Key Vulnerabilities

Research in Motion (RIM), creators of the popular BlackBerry family of mobile devices and services, is expected to launch formally its long-awaited PlayBook tablet computer tomorrow. Here are four reasons why I think RIM's new tablet may be hard to swallow for business users.

PlayBook Vulnerability #1: its proprietary operating system. In business servers, there are two largely dominant operating environments: Microsoft Windows and the converged Linux/UNIX ecosystem. In mobile networked devices for business users, it's largely Apple's iOS and Google's Android -- and RIM, at least in some segments. (Sorry, Symbian and Microsoft, unless Nokia's decision to replace Symbian's software with Windows Phone spurs growth for that platform.) In PCs for business, it's largely Windows and Linux, plus Mac/iOS in some segments. The point is, few if any segments demonstrate much if any need or demand for an operating system other than those that dominate the segment in question.

But the PlayBook will run a proprietary operating system. A marketing challenge at best and a support and integration non-starter at worst.

To users, value is all about available apps. And application developers have limited resources, which means many can't afford to develop and support versions for more than one or two operating systems. Which does not augur well for original apps written for RIM's operating system. While the BlackBerry faithful may be satisfied by a unique set of available apps, others will wonder if there aren't PlayBook versions of apps already popular on the dominant mobile operating systems.

This makes support for Android apps even more potentially important to the PlayBook's success. But so far, all RIM is offering in emulator software to run (at least some) Android apps. In this light, any perceived or actual performance degradations or incompatibilities could present as many opportunities for criticism and frustration as the iPad's lack of Flash support. And business technology decision makers and their teams are looking for fewer interoperability challenges, not more.

PlayBook Vulnerability #2: its form factor. RIM is touting the PlayBook's ability to run games and other multimedia, something about which even business users increasingly care. The PlayBook's 7-inch form factor, like Samsung's Galaxy Tab and other tablets, means current BlackBerry users can likely continue to type with their thumbs on the PlayBook. But the device isn't as comfortable for two-handed typists, or for gamers, movie watchers or Web surfers who prefer more visual real estate. And the riotous popularity of the iPad amply demonstrates that more visual real estate makes even a larger device worth carrying around to a lot of business users.

PlayBook Vulnerability #3: its connectivity limitations. While the PlayBook seems likely to support high-speed networks from AT&T, Verizon and others at some point, it's being shipped initially with support only for Wi-Fi. (A version for Sprint's WiMAX network is expected within, say, 60 days of the official PlayBook launch.) Which means only users of both PlayBooks and BlackBerry devices with corporate network connections can see real-time updates to their calendars, contacts or e-mail. At least until and unless RIM and/or its developer partners and/or savvy users begin to create and propagate effective tethering arrangements that support other mobile phones and carrier networks.

Also, AT&T and Verizon are increasingly dominating the mobile networking market in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the PlayBook not to support either carrier from Day One will be a deal-breaker for technology decision makers and mobile users at many companies. It's a situation likely to turn off users who don't already use BlackBerry devices as well.

PlayBook Vulnerability #4: it's too little, too late. Had RIM announced and delivered the PlayBook a few months earlier, the dynamics of the discussion would likely be different. However, with the iPad 2 and numerous Android tablets already available and more coming soon, RIM will have a difficult time reaching beyond BlackBerry loyalists with the PlayBook.

I'd love to be wrong about any or all of this, but I don't think I am. Whether or not you believe in signs or portents, it is interesting to note that published reports have said that the PlayBook was delayed in part because of the catastrophe in Japan and in part because challenged manufacturers had previous iPad 2 commitments. It's also not helpful to RIM's prospects that its CEO abruptly ended a recently attempted BBC interview when questions strayed beyond the PlayBook and into possible network security concerns. Not great pre-launch PR.

RIM could be in trouble long-term if the PlayBook isn't successful. At the very least, anything that smacks of lackluster adoption will cement perceptions of RIM as an also-ran in the evolving market for tablet computers and other mobile networked devices.

The BlackBerry ecosystem risks becoming the mainframe of mobile devices. That is to say, venerable and respected, and remaining in use long after being superseded, but relegated to the status of "coulda been a contender." Who'd have thought?

Viewfinity Beefs Up Privilege Management in the Cloud(s)

Got business-critical IT resources? Got users? Got mobile users? Got or getting Windows 7 across your enterprise?

If you answered "yes" to any or all of the above questions, here's something else you've got: a need to manage user access privileges and administrative rights. Especially if any of those users are being moved to Windows 7 and/or are mobile.

Windows 7 comes with AppLocker, a set of features designed to enhance the software restriction policies (SRPs) supported in previous Windows releases. (Windows Server 2008 R2 also supports AppLocker.) I'm not going to go into details about AppLocker and SRPs here; instead, I'll refer you to two great pieces by IT and Microsoft expert Greg Shields of Concentrated Technology. One is on AppLocker itself. The other is on a security philosophy AppLocker and related offerings can enable and support: approved execution. After all, malware can't hurt your systems if you've got blacklists and whitelists that can determine what code, malware or otherwise, actually gets to run.

Approved execution is one element of a larger set of challenges and solutions some vendors refer to collectively as "least privileges." Basically, this means giving each user the minimum amount of access privileges needed by that person to do their work, to reduce unauthorized execution of malware or access to IT resources. And moving to Windows 7 provides a great opportunity to review and improve the policies and technologies your company's using to increase security and to control access privileges more effectively. But it's unlikely that every user on your network(s) will be moved to Windows 7 at the same time, and it's very likely that AppLocker alone won't solve all of your privileges management challenges.

Some potential help: Viewfinity, a leading player in this market, just announced version 3.5 of its Privilege Management solution. There are three things I really like about Viewfinity's approach. One is that it provides granular, role-based privilege management that you don't have to be an IT or security expert to make work. Another is that interoperates with Microsoft Active Directory but does not require or rely upon it. This means greater flexibility and continuing functionality even if Active Directory fails. The other is that it's Web/cloud-based. This means it's easier to incorporate protection of authorized mobile users (and rejection of unauthorized access or execution attempts).

There is no single solution that is going to guarantee complete security for any business computing environment. However, tools such as Viewfinity Privilege Management can give you a significant leg up on the continuing "arms race" between malware developers and those attempting to defend their environments against malware. Check it out and see if it can help you to protect your environment, especially if you're facing a move to Windows 7, a growing requirement to support mobile users or both.