Disqus - Latest Comments for Lee Bryant

Re: Bottom-up and inside out – the future of enterprise IT?

Lee Bryant — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 07:46:13 -0000

Thanks Dennis.

I am actually very optimistic about overcoming these challenges, but given that we spend a lot time 'actually doing this stuff', we are required to operate under current realities.

SF AppExchange is great, and definitely a leader in this field.

I wouldn't say the challenges I laid out are "barriers to social computing," just that they require some infrastructural remediation (as Dion Hincliffe says in the posts I refenced) to enable people to socialise around and discuss closely held internal docs, data and systems.

All the best!

Re: How Do I Get Screenshots Larger Than My Screen?

Lee Bryant — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 14:24:48 -0000

Doesn't Paparazzi do this, at least for Web pages?

Re: You Get What You Give

Lee Bryant — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 04:41:23 -0000

Nice. You give a lot, BTW, with your blogging. You really are the most engaging VC writer I have come across :-)

Re: Is "Social Enterprise Software" An Oxymoron?

Lee Bryant — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:05:20 -0000

Thanks for a thoughtful post, as usual.

We have built a successful enterprise social computing consultancy (30+ people, good margins) over the past 5 years with no investment and no sales and marketing, so for us the evidence points to huge needs and untapped demand inside large companies for a new way of working with IT, collaborative tools and communities - and I am talking about top 10 law firms, top 5 consultancies and FTSE-100 companies. We will probably have to productise to scale and meet demand, but we are thinking about high value, short-run products like appliances and virtual server builds.

The market for software has recently been estimated at just under $5bn, but the market for value-added services, mixed internal-external-Saas plays and various other things is probably just as big. And this does not even begin to take into account the cost savings and new sources of value that enterprise social computing may bring. As you may know, the fact that large companies function at all, given the sheer backwardness and intransigence of their IT departments, is a miracle. Now imagine IT becomes a force multiplier, not a barrier. That would mean we could finally start realising the mythical productivity gains that enterprise IT has always promised, but not yet delivered.

Taking the best ideas and tools that have survived the cambrian explosion in the consumer space, and then making them work for a purpose inside the enterprise, is a necessary first step. But then, if we are lucky, we may learn new lessons and invent new ways of doing things inside the more tightly bounded communities of the workplace. In fact, the tools you mention above are not really 'communities' but places where people hang out and keep in touch with their own communities. Twitter, Facebook and other tools can be hugely valuable in more intimate networks and real communities that exist within companies and other networks-with-a-purpose.

Some people in enterprises may indeed not want people to form communities or to behave in a 'social' way, but that is our challenge. Reducing the internal bureaucracy, transaction and co-ordination costs of business is a no-brainer, and so far our experience suggests that when companies see the results, they become less dogmatic about terms like 'social' and 'community'. If large companies are to have a future, and attracting and retaining talent is part of that, then they know they have to change and reflect changes in society at large. I think they are slowly starting to do so.

When 90%+ of the eyeball/advertising-based business models of today's Web 2.0 companies fail, or when there are no more clueless brands that want to buy them at bubblicious valuations, then I think people will once again place a premium on real business and real change. I love my Web 2.0 tools and I think they have transformed our world, but if you want real revenues and real businesses, then the enterprise social computing market is where you will find them.

Re: I'm not happy with Leopard (Scripting News)

Lee Bryant — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 09:55:09 -0000

I love it - clean install - no problems and some wonderful features.

I assume you will throw your rattle out of the pram and switch back next time Windows craps out on you?

Re: Common sense alert

Lee Bryant — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 12:02:49 -0000

Totally agree. This is a debate we have a lot in Headshift, and it also the logic that drives the Green Thing project we help out with: http://www.dothegreenthing.com - use peer pressure + fun rather than just guilt and science.

Re: Should Michael Arrington Be Invited Back At LeWeb Next Year?

Lee Bryant — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 15:50:57 -0000

well done Loic for braver post than usual. Sometimes you can be too nice ;-) I am sure most Americans feel embarrassed and ashamed about Arrington. At first I thought his Le Web post was a joke, parodying the archetypal stupid American in Paris, but then I realised he was for real. OMG!

TechCrunch is not journalism and whilst Arrington has a good position as a self-appointed kingmaker, he adds very little value. He is a product of a previous era and sounds more and more like a 1980s Wall Street douchebag every week. 'It's all about winning' as I am sure Lehman and AIG execs told themselves every day when they felt the dark emptiness of their lives. The current reification of startups and exhortations to work 24hrs a day and destroy their competition is a pre-crash culture, and of all the US A-listers it is Tim O'Reilly, with his idea of creating more value than you consume, who is closer to the mark than Arrington.

Americans are of course most welcome at European events, but we are not such backward tribes that their appearance alone is enough to make us cheer. Very few US celeb speakers at Le Web were challenged to give an actual talk with actual ideas (except Chris Anderson, who was great an Marissa who was professional and respectful). I found some of the fireside chats at Le Web obsequious and banal. That is one aspect of the event I think you really need to think about. We want ideas, insights and new thinking, not happy clappy "aren't you rich/cool!" chats with your friends.

You have a natural role as a European leader in this space, Loic, so please do not get too caught up with the seedier side of US business culture. We are witnessing a new era when the ideas behind the social web will really start to come to the fore of mainstream culture in Obama's US and elsewhere. The future belongs to us, not Arrington ;-)

Re: Pilots are not for profit-making. And we’re not playing games.

Lee Bryant — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:13:58 -0000

Interesting perspective, and I can understand where you are coming from. I think the main danger here is that you end up with product vendors, who can cash in on licenses for little or no up-front cost, rather than solution providers, who might have higher up-front costs but greater long term value. In fact it may be worse than that - this logic is probably what leads many IT departments to sleep walk towards Sharepoint rather than work with partners to create something better. The problem is, not all larger companies are as interested as you in working with smaller vendors, so the risk is often very lop-sided.

It is great that you share your thinking like this. I wish more IT-side people would do it, as I think both they and the vendors have to much to gain from a productive and honest conversation. Well done!

Right now, I think the value in the vendor space is mostly with best-of-breed tools like Socialtext, Confluence, Newsgator, Jive, etc. The problem is that none offers a full E2.0 solution like IBM Connections, and of course there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution. Each enterprise case is quite different.

I expect a lot of innovation and consolidation in 2009 around these issues, and I am hopeful that cost-cutting in a recession will finally be the motivation IT departments need to think beyond their current ways of working.

Re: Pilots are not for profit-making. And we’re not playing games.

Lee Bryant — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 10:08:17 -0000

BTW - I would like to add that I find your blog intelligent and stimulating, so please keep it up!

Re: “Features” has now become a useless concept when evaluating IT projects

Lee Bryant — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:58:09 -0000

Hi Julien,

I think this is a very good point, very well made.

Right now, most IT departments have only the feature comparison spreadsheet matrix (if anything at all!) to judge competing products, and I completely agree with you about ROA, usability, etc., and of course the point that obody has to train you how to use Facebook.

Good to see you blogging more - you really are very good value ;-)

Re: Airport Security

Lee Bryant — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 17:12:12 -0000

OMG! Sound horrible - so sorry to hear that. I hate the whole thing passionately - shoes off, one bag, liquids in a sandwich bag, etc. Makes me angry every time.

Re: I’m Starting a Company

Lee Bryant — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 18:00:31 -0000

Good luck Stephanie - I can't believe after all our brainstorming in Berlin it will not have Pink in the name - how could you?! ;-)

Re: Eat Your Vegetables!

Lee Bryant — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:54:57 -0000

This reminds me of a Charlie and Lola book: http://www.best-childrens-books.com/never-eat-a...

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

Lee Bryant — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

This is driving me soooooo mad. Syslogd carries on at 100%+ CPU (I am on a new Dual core Macbook with 4Gb RAM) for minutes after any log lines are apparently written to system log or console. Unless it is logging somewhere else that Console can't see then I don't get what it is doing.

Zimbra iSync pulgin is the most likley culprit (and does send syslogd mad when it is doing a synch) but this seems to calm down afterwards. Timemachine seems fine. Samba logs are annoying considering I have disabled all file sharing (WTF?) but are only a few Meg comapred to system.log that reaches 50Mb roughly every couple of hours.

I used Al Dhir's tip above for limiting asl.db, and I have changed the rotation of system.log in its conf so that it will rotate every 100Mb, but it is now five minutes after the latest log entry I can see and the damn thing is still running for its life.

I hate to say it, but Leopard is not yet ready IMHO :-(

Re: Crossroads

Lee Bryant — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 05:55:46 -0000

Good luck to both of you - sounds like a big, brave step. I am sure you will succeed.

Re: “Enterprise 2.0″ is about organizational performance, not just t****!

Lee Bryant — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:35:11 -0000

Hi Julien,

I agree with you that the E2.0 label is more about tool use than transformative economic and social relations. That is why we are keen on the term social business design, which is more about social relations and networks effects than tools.

Coincidentally, we are looking at mobile micropayments in Africa right now for a project that aims to build a social marketplace for local entrepreneurs.