WebEx: Ideas in Motion

Corporate Email on the iPhone

The iPhone is certainly one hot device, with very few disputing its “cool” factor. But from the day it came out, people complained that while they enjoyed the music, movie and other multimedia features, the iPhone couldn’t replace their current smartphone because it did not allow access to their corporate email.  So they argued they’d have to have one mobile phone for fun, and one for work, and for many, that was not an affordable or practical option.

But now they don’t have to make that choice.

WebEx today is announcing a new version of WebEx PCNow, its on-demand remote access service, to include support of the iPhone.  With PCNow, iPhone users can access their PC from anywhere and get all their files as well as Microsoft Outlook corporate email to create, reply, forward and delete emails, contacts and appointments.

You can read about it today in BusinessWeek, InformationWeek, CNN or intomobile.

If you already have an iPhone, you can register here for a free 30-day trial.

As the saying goes, have your cake, and eat it too.

Colin Smith, Dir. Corporate Communications, WebEx

Can Sales Innovate?

Definitively YES!

In fact, sales has the potential to be one of the most innovative parts of a company. Take a look at our own David Berman, president, sales and service for WebEx, talking about innovation and how he has fostered innovation in his Sales 2.0 organization.

If you watched the webinar I delivered with Gerhard Gschwandtner, publisher of Selling Power magazine, we discussed what the future of selling looks like:

Sales 1.0	-->	Sales 2.0
Dictating a sales process	-->	Helping prospects buy
Controlling what the buyer knows	-->	Buyers educate themselves before they come to you
Marketing vs. Sales	-->	Marketing and Sales are integrated and interdependent
Selling Solutions	-->	Helping customers succeed
High-efficiency vs. high-touch	-->	High-efficiency AND high-touch
Volume vs. Relationships	-->	Relationship-driven volume
Activity rules	-->	Customer-tested process rules
Flying, driving and coordinating meeting schedules	-->	Engaging anytime, anywhere
Technology is a management burden	-->	Technology enhances prospect engagement and makes sales reps more effective
Count every activity	-->	Measure activities that count
Forecast probability	-->	Forecast predictability
Pipeline volume	-->	Pipeline shape and velocity
Mass prospecting builds a limited linear funnel	-->	Network/Community of unlimited opportunities
Managing by what my reps say	-->	Managing by what my prospects say
Hoarding best (and worst) practices.	-->	Making best practices pervasive

Based on what we’re seeing in the market today, these changes seem inevitable for companies that want to stay competitive and on top of their markets.

But making even just a few of these evolutionary changes now, and finding the innovative ways to do it that work for your organization, will not only put your company ahead of most of the market, but will actually allow you to start to use your sales force and your sales process as a competitive advantage.

For a few ideas on where to start, check out the WebEx channel – Conversations about Web Collaboration – on PodTech .net, where I’ll be hosting a three-part series on the practical side of Sales 2.0, featuring Stu Schmidt, VP of Solutions for WebEx.

Jeff Weinberger, Product Marketing Manager, Sales Solutions, WebEx

SaaS and the Maze of Federal Compliance Rules

This week, a piece I wrote on federal compliance rules was published in Government Computer News.    The article is about the challenge we have at WebEx navigating the maze of federal compliance rules, which are not presently conducive to SAAS or on-demand software.   We are working with government security officials to raise awareness to this problem in hopes that more efficient procedures will be put into place.

For our part, WebEx, has adopted a comprehensive security and compliance strategy, as the article mentions.  Last year, we asked the U.S. National Data Security Agency to conduct an independent risk assessment audit of our infrastructure.  When the risk assessment is complete, WebEx systems will be certified and accredited to meet all standards, regulations and controls set forth by the federal government for information technology infrastructure – in accordance with the National Information Assurance Certification and Accreditation Process (NIACAP).  We are seeking certification and accreditation voluntarily to not only improve our already vigorous security but to assure federal customers of our commitment to this important aspect of our service.

The challenge is that today, the federal policy for private companies offering on-demand software-as-a-service solutions is ambiguous.  NIACAP compliance is not required for on-demand service providers and to obtain it is expensive and slow-going.  Yet, we have found that government security managers look suspiciously at any company who lacks it, especially on-demand providers who are relatively new to the marketplace.  As difficult as NIACAP compliance is to obtain, not having it means not being competitive in the federal market.  Current federal policy favors, by default, large integrators who are being forced to build new products under dedicated government infrastructure that compete with or replicate commercial off-the-shelf products.

At WebEx we hope to help change this paradigm, by offering the federal government a cost-effective, scalable means to obtain the latest technology, without sinking more money into infrastructure, personnel, training and development.

And while policy is important, I believe gaining acceptance in the federal sector will also require a culture change.   Software-as-a-service (SaaS) was designed to host on-demand applications on a dedicated infrastructure, outside the enterprise, thereby maximizing resources and eliminating the costly overhead required to develop and maintain on-premise systems.  What the government loses in physical control and oversight, it gains in less time spent maintaining, managing, repairing, and trouble-shooting a system.

Some of America’s most successful corporations, such as Boeing, Johnson and Johnson, Texas Instruments and Coca-Cola trust on-demand service providers.  Our hope at WebEx is the federal government soon will, as well.   

Gary Griffiths, President, Products and Operations, WebEx

Federal Telework Legislation Moves Forward

Earlier this summer I wrote about legislation designed to encourage telework and telecommuting for small businesses. At the federal level, telework hasn't been getting the kind of traction legislators would like. To address the slow uptake, Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md) this week introduced legislation as an amendment to House's energy efficiency legislation to improve agency level telework initiatives. The legislation, which passed on August 8th, would mandate agencies appoint telework managing officer, a full-time, senior level manager to implement programs on an agency level.

Bipartisan sponsorship comes from Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA).  According to this report in Federal Computing Week, it sounds like Rep. Wolf's constituents would have a need for advocacy:

The Sarbanes amendment was supported by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who represents a congressional district near Washington that is filled with federal employees and roadway congestion. Wolf has long been one of the most vocal proponents of federal telework programs.

As the Washington DC metro area's single biggest employer, the federal government could make a significant impact on reducing traffic congestion by successfully getting agencies to embrace telework. To give a sense of how bad traffic is, commuters in the metro DC area try a few tricks (besides HOV dummies) to avoid congestion, including slugging.

A more sobering view of the impact and complexity of commuting, as well as the benefits of telecommuting into our nation's capital can be found in this Washington Post blog post. Commuters using trains on hot days to help improve air quality don't get much of a break, as the heat puts the train tracks at risk of bending.

Michael Caton, Collaboration Evangelist, WebEx

 

Meeting Team Goals through Timeboxing

We all know that collaboration today involves working across various teams, with each team having (what seem like) conflicting schedules and priorities. When it comes to managing your individual contributions to collaborative projects, prioritizing and finishing tasks can be difficult. One technique from the software development sphere for managing tasks to meet deadlines and finish projects is called timeboxing.

WebWorkerDaily's Mike Gunderloy has an informative post that touches on using timeboxing in the context of a broad range of task management issues. Mike explains how perfectionists can fail at task management; no task can be finished because the resulting document, piece of code, finished good, never quite measures up to an impossibly high standard. Timeboxing works in that it confines time and workmanship within a realistic framework.

Developer Dave Cheong makes the connection to Getting Things Done in this post on his Software Engineer's Journey to Entrepreneurship blog:

I believe time boxing is special for four reasons. Firstly, by consciously being aware of time, it allows us to focus on doing the things that matter most. Secondly, it serves as a reality check on how much time we spend working on open ended tasks. Thirdly, because of the fixed time constraints, it can be an effective tool against procrastination. Finally, it allows us to work on things during the free gaps we have between our commitments and appointments.

Read Dave's post all the way through the comments, there's good feedback and dialog on practically managing your day in discreet timeboxes. Not everyone will identify with blocking the day in sets of 25 and 5 minute intervals per one of the comments, but that's just an example of one approach. Larger blocks or a less committed approach can be as effective.

For most of us flexibility is key, it isn't practical for many people to block multiple hour chunks out of a calendar when co-workers want to schedule meetings, ping you on IM and call you about urgent issues. The idea is to look at your calendar everyday, and when you see a window, dedicate yourself to meeting goals.

Self-reflection is important to timeboxing. One technique for tackling unpleasant or complex tasks is to break them down to time chunks that don't seem that onerous, say 15 minutes. Personally, when I have a tedious chore to work on, I sometimes find it takes 10 minutes just to build up some momentum. And once I get into it, the task doesn't seem as boring or complex and time slips away. So for me, half-hour to one hour chunks generally produce better results.

Here are some other sources on timeboxing in the context of software development, but have broadly applicable themes:

Timeboxing for Top Team Performance
Four Things that Reduce Software Quality

Michael Caton, Collaboration Evangelist, WebEx

Praise from the Evangelist

WebEx received some nice kudos from the Enterprise 2.0 Evangelist, Scott Gavin. For those that haven't seen it, Scott authored this clever presentation describing Enterprise 2.0.

He had the opportunity to see WebEx in action through CNET's recent webinar: Web 2.0 for the Enterprise. ZDNet's Dan Farber hosted, with Forrester Research's G. Oliver Young and Dion Hinchcliffe of Hinchcliffe and Company speaking.   

Scott, many thanks.

Michael Caton, Collaboration Evangelist, WebEx

The Now of Software

Gigaom has launched a microsite to discuss the future of software, as it pertains to Office 2.0, mash-ups, widgets and such. In Om Malik's description of the site, he likens the goal of the site to be a series of articles similar to what Red Herring would put together in a Briefing.

Anne Zelenka's inaugural post discusses the 7 Cs of software. Of course, there are many more Cs than make her list, including collaboration (there's no future for software that doesn't help people share ideas and work together). But those Cs are also sprinkled throughout the article, without the emphasis.

Our concepts of tomorrow are, of course, shaped by what we see today, but the real innovation will come in ways we don't expect. Neal Stephenson's imagining of the Metaverse seemed intriguing 15 years ago as a way to interact over distance. The Metaverse has more relevance today when we see the vision realized tangibly in Second Life. Think about all that hadn't happened yet when Stephens wrote Snow Crash. If you weren't one of a maybe a few hundred thousand people that interacted with a Silicon Graphics workstation and OpenGL, your concept of 3D was limited to an ugly pair of plastic and cardboard glasses at the movie theater.

As this 47 Hats blog post on the 7 Cs of software suggests, Ms, namely MicroMarkets, and MicroISVs will play a part in the future. The other M is Mashups, and these will be, in part, driven by the aforementioned MicroMarkets and MicroISVs. Because being both nimble and flexible will make collaboration, and thereby businesses,  successful going forward. 

Michael Caton, Collaboration Evangelist, WebEx