Collaborative Strategy Guild » Traction Software

A Circle is not a Space – Traction Software

Peter O'Kelly — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 11:40:00 +0000

Timely and insightful analysis from hypertext pioneer Greg Lloyd; check the post link below for more details. A couple observations, relative to Greg’s thesis: 1) Google+ isn’t fully baked, at this point; Google has been clear that Google+ is not even at beta status yet; 2) Google will likely integrate Google+ with Google Sites (and perhaps also Google Groups), and that approach -- extending Google+ with a true workspace-based model (or two, although Google Groups are more messaging-centric than workspace-centric…), rather than trying to morph circles into hybrid spaces -- is likely to be more productive.

Like many people in the tech industry, I've been happily exploring and enjoying Google+ for the past week or so (thank you Susan Scrupski for the early invitation). I like the Google+ bar, polished integration with Google Profiles, Photos, and Video, as well as the new Huddle and Hangout capabilities. And I'm looking forward to Google+ integrated Search.

Google's Circle model was carefully designed, with a wonderfully polished interface for adding folk to Circles and creating new Circles. Google is encouraging active discussion, feedback and suggestions on how Google+ should evolve. That said, I've also followed more than a few Google+ discussions in which people get confused by what the current Circle model is versus what the word "Circle" means to them.

I think it's easiest to understand the Circle model by comparing it directly to email lists. This post illustrates that analogy, with my analysis of the Circle model's strengths and weaknesses, and how it might evolve.

A Circle is not a Space - Traction Software

Marrying deep search and collaboration: KMWorld [on Traction + Attivio]

Peter O'Kelly — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 14:34:00 +0000

Another #e2conf snapshot: I continue to be impressed (as I have been for several years) by Traction Software; check the article link below for a summary and this Traction page for more details on the latest TeamPage release. While it may not (yet…) be trendy to be the market-leading collaborative hypertext journaling platform, I believe that’s what the Traction team has created, and that TeamPage’s underlying architecture and flexibility, especially when used in conjunction with Attivio for faceted search and navigation, make it especially powerful for the various types of tools and services (workspaces, blogs, wikis, activity streams, tagging, tasks, etc.) now commonly associated with “social” software/services.

Traction Software has released TeamPage Attivio Search Plus to index and search external sources and TeamPage's Social Enterprise Web to discuss, tag, task, share and badge internal or external content. These TeamPage options connect TeamPage with structured data or unstructured content in sources including Microsoft SharePoint, EMC Documentum, Microsoft Exchange, file servers, SQL databases, intranets, and the public Web.

Using TeamPage Attivio Search Plus and TeamPage's Social Enterprise Web, external documents, pages and transactions are now able to become social objects seamlessly integrated with Traction TeamPage's action tracking, search, collaboration and communication.

p.s. the list of sources accessible via Attivio also includes Lotus Notes databases

p.s.s. Attivio is not an XQuery-based system; hmm…

Marrying deep search and collaboration: KMWorld

Traction Software, Inc. | Blog1014: Explaining Twitter – One of Three Places for People

pbokelly — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:20:06 +0000

An excellent social networking snapshot from Traction Software co-founder Greg Lloyd – read the full post for more insights, if you’re pondering social software dynamics

For me, the most interesting use of Twitter is as host of the world’s largest stream of personal broadcast channels: you can find, follow or reply to people adept at the 160 character tweet. For example, I enjoy David Pogue (pogue) and Steven Fry (stephenfry) for their ability to mix notes, quips and links. I also follow a sampling of folk interested in hypertext, social software and technology – at least those who don’t just repeat what I scan in more detail from their RSS feeds. I’ll occasionally reply or rebroadcast a tweet ("retweet"), but I also don’t feel bad about un-following folk whose posts I’d rather read in RSS, or tune out as the only way to keep the signal-to-noise ratio of what I read under control. If you attempt to follow a very large number of people, you’ll end up reading a random sample or facing a signal to noise problem:

Venkatesh Rao (vgr): 9:44AM Mar 21: Twitter needs a ‘more like this’/'less like this’ reinforcement learning to lower my SNR . Fave tweet types, not people.

My reply (roundtrip) about 12 hours later: @vgr agree. There’s a great difference between following friends & family where everything counts & topics you care about x everyone.

I’ll call this use of Twitter the world’s largest floating cocktail party, coffee break, and trade show happy hour, where you’re free to tune in to what anyone is saying to the world – and talk back if you wish. Just like any party the roof is an introduction, but you can also just step back and enjoy the flow. It’s a fragmented, freewheeling and noisy place – but you choose the channels you want to listen to follow and can change channels any time.

Traction Software, Inc. | Blog1014: Explaining Twitter – One of Three Places for People

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