Double Dutch HYVE

In 2010 Double Dutch was name Best Mobile Start-up at the Next Web/Paypal X Start up Rally. 
Their newest product Double Dutch HYVE was introduced at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference.  HYVE was created to help an organization become more collaborative, data-driven and to help increase a company's productivity.  It was created for companies but modeled off of the consumer side of technology.  Harnessing the ability of Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare and creating something that allows the same type of social functioning for the work place, helping to solve work place issues. 

In order to introduce HYVE at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference Lawrence Coburn, CEO and Co Founder decided to create an app for the iPhone that conference attendees could use during the conference.  The objectives of Double Dutch was to demonstrate HYVE's capabilities, allow conference attendees to log their activities and connections throughout the conference and to portray Double Dutch as the conference guide for social and mobile purposes. 

Conference attendees could check in to places at the conference as well as people and actions.  They had the ability to log where their time was spent, who it was spent with and the ways in which their time was spent.  Attendees then had the option to upload automatically to Twitter. 

An example of using HYVE technology in the workplace would be to look at the activities of a sales representative.  A sales representative who is traveling will meet with a client and then go back to a hotel, log into laptop and record the meeting.  HYVE check in allows the sales rep to do this through a smartphone.  What would have taken 10 minutes to do has now been reduced to seconds. 

HYVE can be linked to most back end databases that a company already uses and works with most major operating systems.  Some of HYVE's client list includes companies such as Cisco, HP, Gannet, Adobe, Amdocs, TCD and Arizona State University. 

After reading a lot of information on the products on display at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference it is the mobility apps such as HYVE that stand out the most to me.  The world is going more and more mobile and companies that are creating apps to make businesses and employees lives easier seems to be the wave of the future. 

Turkey Dials Back Plan to Expand Censorship

The government of turkey was trying to issue a set of four state mandated browsing filters for all Internet users in the country of Turkey.  This was met by a lot of criticism from the international community and protesting on the streets of Turkey.  In light of this the government has chosen to back off on implementing these strict standards.  Instead they are making available non-mandatory two content filters for its citizens.  The people of Turkey can choose to use them or to have unrestricted access to the Internet.  Under Turkey's law right now there are over 8,000 websites that have been blocked. The Internet Board that develops policy on the Internet is now in the process of drawing up amendments that would limit the rights of courts around the country to have the ability to block websites.  The withdrawal of the four mandatory Internet filters by Turkey was considered positive but Turkey is still being criticized for the two non-mandatory filters that are still linked to government rule. 

Smartphone Battleground

Apple's iPhone sales have been sky rocketing.  A whopping 467.6 million phones are estimated to be sold this year.  This is a 56% increase from last year.  95.8 million of these phones are Apple's iPhone and the iPhone accounts for nearly half of Apple's sales.  However, the largest surge in smartphone growth is due to Android sales rather than Apple.  Android's estimated compounded growth is 43.3% while Apple's is expected to be 28.5%.  Analysts say that Android is ready to grab some of the lower than average selling priced phone segment of the market while Apple is not. 

It's amazing the constant battle of technology and how incredibly high the stakes are for these companies.  It's a never ending battleground with the technology and rules constantly changing. 

The Digital Books Market

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal Apple is no longer allowing companies to sell digital media using an app on an Apple device that links the buyer to the selling company's web page.  Apple will only allow the media to be sold directly from the app - not through a link from the app.  This gives Apple more control and now they will take 30% of the profits from the sale.  Kobo, a Canadian, e-book company was told this on Saturday and they had they had to alter their apps to accommodate this directive by Apple. 

The article states that this does not seem to have deterred magazine publishers from signing up for the Apple's subscription-sales platform.  I think that these companies really don't have much of a choice in this.  If they disregard Apple to take a stand they are losing money.  When a company like Apple is big enough, has enough power and market share the limits are pushed as to how far they will go in achieving as much control as possible. 

The Missteps in Managing News Corp.'s Hacking Crisis

Another great WSJ article on the management issues at News Corp.  There were a couple of quotes which sums things up really well and tie into our text.

"The penalty for missteps in the early phase of a corporate crisis—expense, lost reputation, distraction—can be brutally high." 

This is talked about in our text in chapter 5.  Companies need to have a solid plan for business continuity in order to address issues that come up that interrupt a companies normal business operations.  One of the things mentioned was loss of a companies reputation. 

Another quote from the article:

"How the company manages the next stage of the crisis will determine one of two things: Will News Corp. be able to start rebuilding its reputation? Or will the crisis worsen into a more serious attack on the leadership of the company?"

If companies don't have a solid plan for addressing serious issues that come up it can become their downfall. 

Below is a video taken from WSJ web page discussing the management issues at News Corp.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304567604576456222770513148.html?industry=IND_MEDIA&isub=

Apple's Lion Brings Pcs Into Tablet Era

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Apples-Lion-Brings-PCs-Into-allthingsd-1362548204.html?x=0&.v=1

This was a great article in today's Wall Street Journal.  It talks about Apple's new operating system called the Lion.  It does away with scroll bars and the mouse and instead moves the Mac towards operating more like a smart phone or tablet.  All of your icons are displayed on your home screen instead of your documents being buried into files and menus.  The mail app has been completely revamped and now operates more along the lines of the iPad. Some of the interesting features are as follows. It does away with having to save your work and does this automatically for you.  Additionally, each auto save saves a separate version of your document allowing you to go back and forth between versions and cut and paste as needed.  Anytime you go back into a previously worked on document your cursor is right where you left off.   You can now double tap your computer screen to resize the web page you are viewing just as you can on your iPhone.
What I also found interesting is that the Lion is unavailable in stores and is being sold as a download only.  The Lion is being described as more modern than the old types of operating systems.  How long will it be till the Lion is considered old??

Why IT Projects Fail

I just read an interesting White Paper written by Al NeimatTaimour that discusses the reason why IT proects fail.  This paper states that studies continually show that companies have a lot of difficulty with IT projects.  The main reasons that projects fail are; poor planning, unclear goals and objectives, objectives changing during the project, unrealistic resource estimates and time frames, lack of support from executives and lack of team communication as well is inadequate training and skills.
 
This paper also discusses ways in which managers can help reduce the percentages of projects failing.  They can help projects to succeed by; adequate planning before the start of the project, attention to detail in completing tasks, calculate risk appropriately, have clear objectives, estimate time to complete by duration instead of time on task, executive support from management, address any reservations management may have about the project, design and implement the project through the users, use appropriate planning, communication and technology. 

I think these suggestions are very logical.  They are all based on using research, careful planning and providing the required support necessary for a successful project.  These kinds of considerations could easily be applied to any type of project, building a house, planting a garden or starting a business.  IT projects like any other project need to be approached with careful consideration, attention to detail and mapping out a plan.