Below are the blog entries for March 2008
CEO Insights - Real-Time Collaboration Using Web 2.0 and Consumer Social Media Tools
By Elizabeth Starkey
Friday, March 21st, 2008 at 9:00am
Hannon Hill founder and CEO David Cummings recently spoke at Tallahassee’s TechExpo 1.0 on the topic of Marketing Streamlined: Using Social Media and Web 2.0 Tools for Facilitating Community Collaboration. We spoke with David to learn more about his fascinating presentation on the collaborative benefits of Web 2.0 tools such as wikis, blogs, and RSS feeds.
Elizabeth: What social media tools do you feel are currently making the biggest impact on online collaboration and in what ways?
David: Some of the biggest ones right now are the blogs and the wikis. Blogs are great for publishing quick, informal pieces of content, opinion pieces, commentary on industry happenings, and what not. And then on the wiki side is the idea that there are these collaborative pages of content that are free-form, obviously with Wikipedia being the greatest example out there. This idea that people can collaborate and update information in real time and share that removes a lot of the overhead and structure that was typically inherent in sharing Microsoft Word documents, and having file shares, and only having one person be able to edit content at a time. A wiki really takes all those types of friction that occurred previously and makes it much more seamless for the collaboration to occur.
Elizabeth: What are some unique ways in which you have seen these innovations utilized?
David: Well, of course, on the consumer side and the public-facing side, Wikipedia is phenomenally successful. Then you also have, on the blogging side, companies like Blogger, which is now part of Google, really making it so that anybody can do a blog. If you can send email in a web browser, you have the capabilities to manage and update your online diary, which is essentially what a blog is. The collaboration comes in by making it really easy to publish the content, but then also having the comments section on the blogs so people can actually comment on and discuss the opinion piece or whatever was posted in that blog entry. And then in the next level of collaboration items in terms of comments are things like ratings. You’ll see systems where you can rate information. Amazon.com does a really good job of this, allowing you to rate different products on their website, and then that information is shared back with the community. Amazon.com has a very strong network effect of people that contribute back to it, and then when you look for a new book or a new movie, and you look at the ratings on Amazon.com and you read the comments about it, it makes for a much more compelling site to visit on a regular basis.
Elizabeth: How have you personally used these social media tools, and what results have you witnessed?
David: I’ve used Wikipedia. I’ve actually edited a few entries over the past few years. I have my own personal blog at DavidCummings.org, and it’s powered by Blogger. I really do this as an exercise to use other tools out there, and experience them, and see what I like and don’t like about them so I can have a greater awareness and understanding and use that insight to contribute back to the Hannon Hill products.
Elizabeth: How can one prevent the misuse of such tools within an organization?
David: This is a tough one. In a professional organization, I don’t think there’s too much risk for misuse. If you expose it to the public, then yes, you will definitely have to moderate the comments potentially. You’ll definitely have to add filters or double-check information that’s posted to your wiki or your blog comments and make sure that it’s appropriate for a professional setting. In our experience and in my personal experience in the professional setting, we haven’t really seen much in the way of misuse of these types of tools.
Elizabeth: In what potential direction do you see emerging social media innovations taking in the near future?
David: I think this is an interesting trend because these really came out of consumer tools like Wikipedia, again more of a consumer tool, and Blogger, TypePad, or Movable Type, again very consumer-ish. This is interesting compared to some of the historical innovations that have occurred, for example, the Blackberry and the idea of checking your email or the internet on your phone. That was really driven out of the business side of innovation, whereas on the Web 2.0 and the collaboration front, many of these are consumer tools. Using Flickr or using del.icio.us or using Blogger or Wikipedia are very much from the consumer side that are going very quickly into the business side, and they’re already on the business side for a lot of products and a lot of companies. I think that’s really interesting from a big picture point of view. I see that adoption accelerating. When more and more people use them on the consumer side, they spread. Even social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace have the business equivalents of them, like LinkedIn. I think that growth is going to continue to occur, and it’s going to be a bottom-up where people use them on the consumer side and then go into their workplaces or into their business settings and they want similar types of tools for their business collaboration.
Elizabeth: Do you have anything else you’d like to share about this topic?
David: I think it’s a very fascinating topic. It’s something that we spend a lot of time on here at Hannon Hill, working on making sure, from a content management system point of view, and really just being a part of the web ecosystem, that we understand what’s going on and we use what’s going on, and we make sure our product fits in extremely well with different initiatives that people have, both by having the functionality native in the product as well as integrating with best-of-breed systems.
Elizabeth: Thank you for speaking with us and sharing your valuable insights.
David: Great, thank you!
Category
- Commentary
Does My Mii Look Like Me?
By Elizabeth Starkey
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 2:00pm
One of the most popular features of the Nintendo Wii is the ability to create a Mii, a customizable virtual representation of oneself, which can be used in various games. Players can specify everything from height and hairstyle to the size and rotation of facial features. These avatars enhance the user’s participation experience. Instead of controlling a default character (i.e. Mario), a player’s Mii, with actions controlled via the motion-detecting remote, can play tennis, bowl a strike, or battle a boxing opponent. Non-participating Miis who are stored in the system appear in roles such as teammates or audience members. The possibilities are endless, and the creation of celebrity Miis has obviously become quite popular. If you thought your life-long dream of playing baseball with Woody Allen or Stephen Colbert is hopeless, think again. With the Nintendo Wii, you can!
Although it's now the middle of March, we still treat the Nintendo Wii that showed up around holiday time (equipped with a copy of Wii Sports and Guitar Hero III) with Christmas morning-like excitement. To celebrate the presence of this fantastic new addition, we (no pun intended) held a “Does My Mii Look Like Me?” contest. Cast your vote below for the Hannon Hillian who created the most successful lookalike, and and help us decide this heavily contested race.
After submitting, go back to the top to see the results! Or click here just view the results!
Category
- Commentary
Providing Web Content Management... Solutions!
By
Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 5:00pm
As vendors of what most of us in the industry like to refer to as Web Content Management solutions, our sales team often gets phone calls from clients frustrated with their current CMS of choice, which has often times become anything but a solution. Just this morning in fact, while finishing my cup of coffee, I received a call from a gentleman who was highly upset with the actions of his current vendor. Of course, I was more than happy to listen; hearing frustrations people face using other systems provides me with extra insight into what they are looking for in a CMS. However, this morning after my conversation with “Jon,” I found myself reflecting on my past four years here at Hannon Hill, and what I enjoy most about what we do.
All of us here at Hannon Hill, and particularly myself, have come to realize that there are three fundamental aspects that drive the success of our sales team and the overall success of our company: people, process, and the product – Cascade Server. We take these three fundamental pieces, and bring them together every day in the service we provide our customers. Realizing that it is not just the software, but also the human element that drives web content management has afforded us the accolades of many organizations across many industries.
Most commonly though, I find that it is organizations of Higher Education that consistently find Cascade to be the right fit when it comes to a CMS. When I think back on my four years here so far, I have come to realize that being able to provide some of the best colleges and universities in the nation with the right tool to supplement their web governance model, is very rewarding.
Unlike many other vendors in the industry, at Hannon Hill, web content management is our sole focus - one product, and nothing else. Many of our competitors offer a WCMS as part of a plethora of product offerings, and are always very hesitant to specify just how much of their "human energy" is spent on the CMS sides of things. Hannon Hill was founded strictly to provide quality content management solutions for organizations like colleges and universities.
This means that 100% of the time each and every person in our organization spends at work (and often at home) is dedicated to making Cascade Server the best web content management product on the market. This commitment translates into giving our clients our full attention, communicating a clear company vision and focus, and making sure contacting us is as simple as logging into your email, or picking up the phone... not multiple times - ONCE.
Despite recent events in our industry, we can guarantee we are remaining completely committed to clients in Higher Education, our Web Content Management solution, Cascade Server, and the people and process that make it what it is today.
Category
- Commentary
ProHealth Care RiverWalk
By Blaine Herman
Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 1:00pm
Are you looking for a great charity to give to? Look no further! One of our clients, ProHealth Care, located in Waukesha, WI sponsors an annual RiveWalk for Breast Cancer. This year, Hannon Hill employees got together to make donations, which was complimented with a company match. Check out their site (and make a donation) if you get a chance!
ProHealth Care's nationally recognized programs and physicians, funded largely by fundraising walks, include cancer research, progressive and supportive programs, high-risk/genetic services, awareness, and technology.
Category
- News
