Its October 31st and time for the annual Author-it Halloween party.
The town center complex where our offices are located is also celebrating its first birthday, so there are crowds everywhere outside.
There is lots of entertainment laid on for the kids; a Scooby Doo show, a Shrek show. .. wait hang on, its Halloween and Shrek is wearing a Santa outfit!  Confusion reigns for the kids..

So lets check out our costumes. Wow incredible, as usual everyone has really got into the Halloween spirit.  Witches, vampires, the ghost of Movember (no kidding, it had at least 5 mo’s), an ugly sister, a pig, a knight and a whole raft of other costumes.

We even had the very classic “knife in the head” costume.
I personally opted for the classic “Devil” look, and drove to the function in costume. An interesting experience, but I recommend if you are going to try it, remove your mask first.

The food at the party was fantastic. A lot of the team had gone to considerable effort to turn cup cakes into Frankenstein, mummies, ghosts, spiders etc.

The popcorn hands were a big hit with the kids (and some of us big kids). Of course a feast on Halloween would not be complete without having Hell pizza. Very fitting.

Two teams were formed and two victims selected and the mummy wrapping competition began. Everyone had lots of fun and the result was amazing.

Then it was lights out in the office as we all peered out the window (some of us in costume to scare the punters below) to watch the spectacular fireworks display that the town center put on in celebration of their first birthday.

Truly, the best I have ever seen.

An incredible night, and I left the way I came in, in full costume. I was even asked by a group if I would pose for a photo on my way to the car.

Posted by Leighton Durney, Test Analysis Team Leader, Author-it Software Corporation

Let me give you an example: In one of my first projects I had to organize the relocation of the company to a new, much larger building. As part of the process, we needed to clarify a couple of issues regarding the alarm and security.

I duly summarized our questions in an email and sent it to the contractor responsible for the fit-out. Not that I expected an answer within a week (by the way: that’s what I’d expect sending this email to a German company), but after 10 days I would have been really happy to receive at least a mail saying “received – we will get back to you”. But the CEO of this company did not contact me, messages on his mobile box remained unanswered, as well as my “friendly reminder” e-mails.

Anyway, about two weeks later of complete “communication silence” I finally managed to reach him by phone. His reaction was a very friendly “it’s no problem at all, no worries”. We clarified our questions and just minutes later all the issues were sorted out, task boxes were ticked. I was happy, but couldn’t help thinking “why on earth didn’t this happen sooner?”.

Not, that I am feeling peeved, I am just a bit bemused. All I wanted to do was get a response in a timely and organized way, but without ‘nagging’ my partners or upsetting them.
This, by the way, is far from the end of the story: A couple of weeks later we have finally moved into the new building. My understanding of the role of a Project Manager includes cross-checking the initial quote and PO with the services and installations delivered to us.

And guess, what was the result? A quick look at what we asked – and paid for, and what was actually carried out revealed some inconsistencies, to say the least.

The response from the contractor: “Oh, my goodness, we have forgotten to install the temperature sensor in the server room.” And once again, in the friendliest of tones he added “it’s no problem at all, no worries”.

I am sure, by the time we were finished they would have wished I was anywhere else rather than on the project: This “smart project manager” is really checking everything and he does not give up until all is done … And I have since had heaps of other very similar bits of feedback, all about me following up, sticking to schedules and chasing deadlines.

I realize that my style of working is pretty pedantic (I’ve been told I won’t ever starve in hell…) but surely it’s not too much to ask for a project to be carried out, as agreed, on time?

I am still working hard on finding my very own German/Kiwi balance: So far it seems to be “stay relaxed, but not too relaxed”. So, does anyone else have similar experiences about working in another country? Is it a cultural issue, or more about the character of the individual?

By the time you read this blog post the US Presidential election should have been decided.  Whichever side of the political fence you sit on, Obama or McCain, one thing is clear; the first order of business for the new President will focus on restoring confidence in financial markets.

The President’s ability to really influence the crisis will be an interesting sidebar as it plays out.  Rupert Murdoch claims there is little they can do to help but much they can do to make the situation worse.  He fears the effects of protectionist policies on globalization but I think we also need to consider the costs of an ‘avalanche of regulation’ aimed at righting the wrongs of the current crisis.

It is clear the market has failed and where markets fail, governments have a responsibility to step in and regulate. The upside is, we don’t repeat the mistakes of yesterday. On the down, with regulation comes compliance and cost. Cost, when corporations are already struggling with a heavy compliance burden and the effects of a down economy.

Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC) is a growing market segment sized by GRC Analysts, Corporate Integrity at $52.1 Billion in 2008. There is a thriving technology sector delivering solutions for GRC.

I have been having a series of discussions with analysts and players exploring the connection between Component Content Management (CCM) and GRC. There is a huge opportunity to include CCM solutions such as Author-it, in the GRC mix to fill the gap in current GRC solutions where the rubber meets the road… Policy and Procedure documentation and training materials.  It is via this documentation that a corporation educates its employees on how to be compliant and holds them accountable.

Compliance in this parlance is about people, processes and systems, all of which must be documented. And if they are to be documented, you better have a process for managing the content that goes into this documentation.  CCM concepts such as reuse, single sourcing, multi-output publishing and localization all play a role in providing an efficient, auditable and ultimately compliant result.

We are into phase two of a three phase project with a major US financial institution as we speak.  This project is all about compliance, efficiency and cost savings.  Author-it is enabling them to create policy and procedure content from business units all around the US, store this content in a central repository, update it in a controlled fashion/workflow and then deliver it via a dynamic web output to tens of thousands of employees. The solution allows for multiple variants of policies and procedures based on criteria such as geography and business unit.  These variants are resolved at publishing allowing for a dynamic, employee specific document.

It is a fabulous example of how CCM can successfully breach the GAP between GRC and the compliance coalface, your employees.
Cheers
Steve

Posted by Steve Davis, President, Author-it Software Corporation

Motivation and feedback has always been a major discussion issue in Germany within the last few years – especially for employees but (unfortunately) not so much for managers.

I regret that, in my humble opinion, many companies in Germany lack a sustaining motivation culture. Often the mentality is more or less “You have got a job to do and we have our expectations about your performance and success within this job. If you meet what we expect, when you perform well, then all is fine”.

This is probably one of the major the reasons why submitting a positive feedback is often not even considered. “Why” could be the possible reaction “why should I submit feedback when my employee is just doing what I expect from him/her?”

And of course, whenever my employee is not performing as expected and hence does not meet the management expectations, then submitting feedback is important and a “first duty in the morning”. “Yes” could be here the possible reaction “yes, we need to express our disappointment!”

Not to forgetting to mention that often you need nerves of steel when your manager submits his feedback to you: Feedback is expressed in a very straight forward and sometimes hard way as well. No subtleties, big talking or beating around the bush – management starts with the pain points as single topics one-by-one and the feedback is all about the negative aspects that need to be resolved. This can be pretty tough, so nothing for people without nerves.

And here in New Zealand and specifically within Author-it? It is very obvious that the management addresses motivation and feedback very thoroughly. I can recall a situation in one of my first meetings here, during which our president reviewed the delivery of our latest software and product release. First, he honored the work of the entire team before he then praised the performance, contribution and commitment of selected team members.

I found this very impressive, very positive. And very committed as well: It reflects that the management is aware of the various challenges each team is facing, and acknowledges at the same moment the efforts and the success of the entire team and their team players.

To be honest: For me as a German, the feeling of a “Yes, submit positive feedback, but not too much and only if outstanding results have been achieved” still accompanies me. We all know that it’s often all about the little things which don’t cost you the world. Which don’t require much effort but can create an incredible amount of positive and productive energy.

I still need to get more time used to this completely different type of feedback culture. But at least in the Author-it work environment there is no need to think of “an adequate dosage” of positive motivation or feedback: Just give positive feedback whenever there is good reason for positive feedback, and you can’t go wrong. And don’t forget to give positive feedback to your managers, they appreciate it as well!

I’m interested to hear how the feedback culture differs across the globe – perhaps some of our American or Asian readers may like to comment?

Posted by Ralf Wittgen, Director Global Services, Author-it Software Corporation

“Web 3.0? But we’re still getting our heads around Web 2.0!”

Sure, but technology and the internet waits for no man.

Web 3.0 describes the evolutionary stage of the Web that follows Web 2.0. and was coined by John Markoff of the New York Times in 2006, referring to a supposed third generation of Internet-based services that make up what might be called ‘the intelligent Web’ – such as those using semantic web, microformats, natural language search, data-mining, machine learning, recommendation agents, and artificial intelligence technologies – which emphasize system-facilitated understanding of information in order to provide a more productive and intuitive user experience.

Nova Spivack defines Web 3.0 as the third decade of the Web (2010-2020) during which he suggests several major complementary technology trends will reach new levels of maturity simultaneously including:

• transformation of the Web from a network of separately siloed applications and content repositories to a more seamless and interoperable whole.
• ubiquitous connectivity, broadband adoption, mobile Internet access and mobile devices
• network computing, software-as-a-service business models, Web services interoperability, distributed computing, grid computing and cloud computing;
• open technologies, open APIs and protocols, open data formats, open-source software platforms and open data (e.g. Creative Commons, Open Data License);
• open identity, OpenID, open reputation, roaming portable identity and personal data;
• the intelligent web, Semantic Web technologies such as RDF, OWL, SWRL, SPARQL, GRDDL, semantic application platforms, and statement-based datastores;
• distributed databases, the “World Wide Database” (enabled by Semantic Web technologies); and
• intelligent applications, natural language processing, machine learning, machine reasoning, autonomous agents.

So, in a nutshell, what will Web 3.0 mean to the average user?
First, we simply have to assume universal adoption of broadband to enable delivery (sounds easy if you say it fast ..).  Once this is in place, my belief is that the online experience will become much more personalized when it comes to content. There is no doubt that we will see emerging technology dramatically change our interaction with the web at a base level.

For example Artificial Intelligence systems in development will soon have the capability to provide a “virtual” online assistant, providing human-machine interaction at far greater levels than ever before and the new generation of ’3D’ sites will be similarly enhancing gaming and related environments like “Second Life”.

At the moment, Web 2.0 allows for collaboration, discussion, and in most cases distribution; however the user still has to put effort into tracking down their areas of interest and has to actively pursue the content whether it be via groups, forums Feeds etc.

Web 3.0 promises a world where each user’s profile, preferences, likes, dislikes, wants and needs are so widely available via open data streams (for some, a scary thought in itself) that when surfing the ‘net, you will no longer just see “a page” created for the masses, but will receive specifically delivered content, personalized for you at a granular or component level.
Needless to say, the implications of Web 3.0 for the development of the CMS industry worldwide is huge.

Posted by Dunken Francis – Web Consultant Author-it Software Corporation (with thanks to Wikipedia for Nova Spivack references)