Craig's Lemonade

Transparency vs. Stealth...that is the question

I saved this wired article by Clive Thompson earlier this year about corporate transparency. It explains what "transparency" means in this web 2.0 world we are living in ranging from the CEO of Red Fin's utilization of transparency to shake things up in the residential real estate market to how some "venture capitalists now demand that CEOs be fluent in blogspeak." I doubt they demand it, though it is worth noting that I did have to explain what a blog was to some of my VCs not so long ago. (And I'm definitely not going to be transparent about that one!)

Thompson writes this about Glen Kelman, Red Fin CEO:

Like some crazed convert, he trumpeted his epiphany: "I honestly believe that if Redfin were stripped absolutely bare for all the world to see, naked and humiliated in the sunlight, more people would do business with us." Follow me, he urged.

All I thought was, wow. That's bold. I like this guy already. I am a very aggressive competitor, and I love going to toe-to-toe with whomever, but sometimes it's the marketplace that needs to be hit over the head. Playing nice (or traditionally) just doesn't work sometimes. Take now for instance, I am spending an inordinate amount of time with powerpoint assisted "water-is-wet-and-the-sky-is-blue" pitches like there is no tomorrow. Changing the status quo is not easy and perhaps "transparency" is a key ingredient for paradigm shifting in high growth markets.

Stealth, Secrecy? Enter Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs practices the exact opposite of transparency - maybe we could call it paranoid stealthaphrania. To say steve fixed Apple and then some is an understatement. I think we can all agree that for a 1.0 the iPhone is pretty fucking cool. And it was all a secret. Yes, I know he is a CEO rockstar with bottomless pockets and arguably the world's strongest brand - but aside from that lame cube the products coming out of Apple are extraordinary.

So, yes, stealth works. And you don't have to be a rock star in my opinion to reap the benefits.

FeedBurner founder/CEO Dick Costolo talks about why stealth is dead, and transparency is good and he makes some good points, but I am still leaning Jobsian. Make his blog "ask the wizard" a must -read. So, since leaving the CEO post at Attensa in April I've been in stealth and getting ready to write about it. Not sure how I'll go about my blogging yet. But there will be a little bit of RSS in there somewhere! ; )

Technorati tags: Attensa, RSS, Red Fin, Transparency, Steve Jobs, Stealth, Glen Kelman

Information overload in business!? Web 2.0 in the enterprise inevitable?! No shit.

So, despite being off on another project since April of this year, I still get my RSS  feeds and google alerts for anything touching the enterprise RSS space, attention (which is also gaining some steam), Attensa (which I and some pals co-founded a few years back), NewsGator, and KnowNow. I was surprised and thrilled to see that finally the media is paying attention to what has been going for years - yes years -  in the enterprise with regard to RSS. There were no solutions until NewsGator and Attensa showed up with our respective Enterprise Solutions. It is a big opportunity.

So, in the PC World article entitled "Companies Tap RSS to Tame Info Overload", Juan Carlos Perez hits the nail on the head about what is going on. Finally.

"The first problem we see addressed regularly with enterprise RSS systems is e-mail overload. Most knowledge workers these days are just about completely fed up with e-mail," said Oliver Young, a Forrester Research analyst.

Also in the past week Network World's Jim Duffy informs his enterprise readers that "Web 2.0 inevitable in the enterprise...", and describes how that with rampant user-driven utilization of web 2.0 technologies, if they are not careful they are going to get caught with their pants down....

"Companies should establish strict guidelines for employees' use of  social-networking platforms, RSS feeds, wikis and mash-ups, the panel participants said. Companies must consider the content and amount of information employees are sharing on easily accessible Web pages."

I have been pitching and explaining this for years, and unfortunately, the main people that don't get that this revolution is happening are INVESTORS. It guess now that is so obvious perhaps it will loosen up investments. But to be clear, e-mail is only part of the problem, RSS is in heavy use in pockets of enterprise companies already, independent of any e-mail overload problems. In the past I posted here a lot on the subject including this one about year ago about the "stellar demand of enterprise RSS." There are many other similar posts.

I am no longer affiliated operationally with Attensa, but with a vested interest I do keep my ear to the ground. Attensa apparently has finally closed a seven figure deal with a major company who will be deploying the enterprise solution to thousands of seats worldwide. Great job folks! Attensa beat out its competitors hands down...and it it only took TWO YEARS. Reportedly other purchase orders are now finally rolling in despite the lack of meaningful marketing spending by the company. This is a clear sign to the meek that the market is "real." That said, this may be a fast-paced, white-hot, changing-all-the-rules Web 2.0 world to many in the media and with the conference-going digerati, but conventional, proven, enterprise-wide sales methodologies are still alive and well - and are a long haul.

Still puzzling to me is Lotus and their new, strange and sometimes cool, Lotus Connections. While interesting they totally missed the mark. The research even says so, so not just my opinion. I wonder if they even spoke to any actual customers. How the hell did they decide to include tagging, blogging, and a wiki environment, and not enterprise RSS. Go figure. SpikeSource's Suite 2.0 got the feature set right, but it is a cobbled together "frankensuite" (as the folks at Jive Software called it.) Incidentally, s far as Jive goes, their ClearSpace is worth a look for installations who want a rapidly deployed, affordable suite for collaboration (though like Lotus Connections it is sans RSS enterprise capabilities.)

As far as Enterprise RSS via Suite 2.0, I dont see big business biting other than those early, early in the cycle that realize there is nothing else out there from one vendor that does just the critical stuff...that said, and to make matters worse, Suite 2.0 isn't even on one platform, as most of Suite 2.0 is apparently on the LAMP stack, Attensa competitor NGES is all .net. Ugh.

Looks like Enterprise RSS is here. Some of us already knew. But hey, ROCK ON!

Technorati tags: Attensa, Attention, NewsGator, KnowNOw, Lotus, Web 2.0, Jive Software, Lotus Connections, Suite 2.0, Enterprise RSS, NGES, Attensa Enterprise Server

A picture worth a thousand words...to me anyway

So, having just dropped the kids off at school a few hours ago, I encountered a big ugly garbage truck. It was blocking the road and I was forced to wait. I am impatient so I didn't wait long. I don't personally write out the bills so I was unaware who collected our garbage...turns out its RSS! I laughed out loud. No, I haven't given up on RSS, far from it, as my new gig will utilize it in a variety of ways. But as far as moving on to a new chapter in my professional life, with things really heating up for the Pump Networks team this week, I found it ironic enough to stop the car and snap the photo.

At Attensa we've raised some $12 MM to date, and I'm going to guess based on press releases that NewsGator has raised around $20 MM and KnowNow (for this effort anyway) raised about $10 MM. For all of the companies one thing I know for sure, it is not nearly enough. Not even close. The opportunity is the enterprise and it has always taken tens of millions and very long sales cycles. The real bitch with enterprise RSS is that only a few investors are drinking the Kool-Aid; Mobius, RSS Investors, SmartForest, MastHead, KPCB and a few others. I've been in the business a long time and I can attest to this - enterprise RSS does not impress investors. Investors don't see the "pain." Companies, they DO see it, the inquiries from major corporations are considerable. Having the necessary capital to go after the business however is the hard part.

All of us (though for the record I left Attensa in April) have done a lot of pitching about not only the future of RSS in the enterprise, but that it is in fact here now. It is still early, and there remains a lot of tire-kicking, but the potential is clearly huge. Unfortunately, and in my opinion, the vast majority of venture folks see RSS as a big garbage truck driving by and pay it no attention. At least I took a picture.

American Cancer Society SAO Oregon Zoo El Gaucho

Technorati tags: Attensa, RSS, Enterprise RSS, NewsGator, KnowNow, Mobius, SmartForest, Venture Capital

Onward

After three plus years as founder/CEO of Attensa last month the board and I decided it was time to make some changes....and I've stepped down. I've started and run software companies for nearly 22 years now, it's all I've ever done since dropping out of Carnegie Mellon in the mid-eighties, and I can honestly say I love it! Macintosh enthusiasts may remember Now Software in the early nineties, or others may recall Extensis, which is an ongoing concern that I remain very proud of to this day. Obviously, I have a vested interest in Attensa's ongoing success, and have nothing but positive things to say about the experience. So, all the best and thanks to everyone involved!

Early on at Attensa we made big bets on deep technology rather than acquiring market share via popular and solid consumer clients. History will determine if NewsGator's acquisition approach was a smarter move than Attensa's R&D focus on its attentionstream and related technologies. I believe Attensa's future is bright, especially given it's exclusive focus on the enterprise. Consumer RSS is already a commodity and Google, Yahoo, etc will own it - or one could argue they already do. NG and others may make some money from powers users wanting more but the business opportunity is clearly behind the firewall. To date and for the next several quarters businesses that actually are looking at enterprise RSS are essentially just looking for basic "plumbing" to enable RSS workflows and/or standardize on solid RSS clients for support peace of mind. It's not rocket science, or all that interesting actually, but it is where the market is today, IMHO.

Attensa will shine when information overload arrives in big business. My prediction is that this will start happening in 2008 even though I personally started talking about it in late 2005/early 2006. For now though, its just plumbing, and NG and Attensa will battle that out over the next year or so. I believe Attensa will win deals when there is a thorough technology evaluation, NG will win many due to market awareness and the multitude of RSS readers they have built or acquired for a variety of platforms. Both can succeed and thrive - this is a very, very BIG market.

So, what's next for me? It's called Pump Networks. Yes its web 2.0 (whatever that means) and has some RSS components. Look for a late summer "alpha."

I can be reached at [email protected]

Technorati tags: Attensa, PumpNetworks, NewsGator, Extensis, Enterprise RSS, Web 2.0

RSS and Web Analytics in a 2.0 world. Its attention.

A few weeks back a gave about an hour talk at the annual Software Association of Oregon (SAO) annual retreat. It was frankly a last minute addition to the agenda, but seemed like a poignant time in our association's history to jostle the old guard about what it means to be a software company in 2007. Great examples of new web 2.0. software companies I discussed included SplashCast, Jive Software, Aboutus.org, and others. There are no doubt dozens of budding new software companies that have yet to be discovered. Unfortunately, the SAO is the last to learn of them, in fact I learned about SplashCast from TechCrunch (which most folks at the retreat wrote down as if they had never heard of it.) So, what about web analytics in a 2.0 World?

Thinking and talking about this paradigm shift at our annual retreat, combined with my job as CEO of Attensa (where we have our own analytics component for the enterprise), it got me thinking. I believe the web analytics space is one of the more interesting established software markets to be profoundly impacted by web 2.0 than any other. I firmly believe this for three reasons;

1. RSS is a serious marketing tool for businesses of all sizes and industries and will become significant. More progressive emarketers are already seeing the benefits both for replacing/augmenting email programs and for distributing information to customers by broadcasting (rather than requiring a return to a marketers web site for information.) I believe companies will demand integrated measurement tools for RSS as through as those for email, advertising, and web site analytics.
2. Delivering the analytics TO the customer just makes sense. Currently, essentially all of the major players in this space require going to a dashboard/portal user interface. This is so 2005. Users at all levels, consumer and business, are proving that push vs. pull is the preferred means of discovering information. Industry watchers are already wondering why RSS feeds aren't used yet by the major players in the web analytics space. Using RSS as a means to distribute Web analytics updates/reports is so obvious it is inevitable, and perhaps new standards such as Microsoft's SLE, will be the best way for companies to deliver this type of information easily. I for one would like to get my FeedBurner stats this way, and I'm not alone.
3. Measuring the user is changing, and in the future its 'attention' not click residue. What is important for marketers, then and now, is getting the best read on their current or prospective customers habits. And, of course, to get them to buy. Clickstreams and clickthroughs are not the end-all, just a tiny part of the whole. Consider the phenomenon of end user tagging, which last month's PEW Internet & American Life Project report confirmed that already 28% of online Americans have used the Internet to tag content. This is pure "attention" and far more useful overtime than clickstreams or clicks.

Simon Wakeman, an industry consultant, discusses his experience using Google Analytics, StatCounter, and FeedBurner on his blog. And of course points out that he cant get RSS feeds from any of them. Steve Rubel has discovered a new service called Clicky that may be a peek at web 2.0 analytics. I have not tried it yet. Also worth noting, Google announced it will publish stats on its Google Reader and there is some chatter on the labs blog. I have a feeling all the major services will publish these stats over time and, accordingly, marketers will care.

As for Attensa, our Enterprise Server (AFS) has an analytics component, but it is focused primarily at behind the firewall use of RSS feeds for business users. We have no current plans to offer RSS for large companies that are adding RSS as a medium for communicating to customers. At least not yet.

In my opinion, the conventional web analytics software firm of the future will need to focus on the interactivity of customers across all media, not click residue. Thoughts?

Technorati Tags: SAO.org - Attensa - Attention - Attensa Feed Server - Web Analytics - RSS Analytics - Web 2.0 - Web2.0 - Splashcast - Jive software - Microsoft SLE - FeedBurner - PEW - Google Analytics - Google Reader - Simon Wakeman - Steve Rubel - tagging - StatCounter - Clicky - RSS - RSS Marketing

Attensa Feed Server 1.1, the first of many announcements coming your way

Our folks have been busy down in engineering, and in marcom too for that matter, and today we have begun a flurry of announcements. First up, Attensa Feed Server 1.1, and Scott's post on it here. The biggest news is that the 1.1 release is available as an appliance as always, but we've added its availability as software, and as a hosted solution. Pricing is not yet available. Anyone comparing our offerings to others I encourage a close examination of TCO, and to give our sales folks a call, our stuff is nimble and can be up and running in under an hour. Stay tuned for new product announcements, technology announcements, and more over the next several weeks.

Also note our positioning shift at Attensa. Like our contemporaries NewsGator and KnowNow, and with more evidence of enterprise adoption of web 2.0 technologies such as FastForward's appearing daily, we are backing off the "information overload" message. "RSS for enterprise 2.0. Putting web feeds to work" is where we are going with our marketing message.

At first I thought NewsGator's recent press release about the impact of Microsoft's Vista/IE7 and RSS technology on the potential of RSS was a big "duh" but I must admit Greg is spot on - and a well done release too. Read it. Then there's Outlook 2007. If anyone out there is trying to put a few hundred RSS feeds into Outlook 2007, be prepared to be disappointed. Ugh. And this is before one even starts to think about the impending .pst bloat that will follow soonthereafter. Attensa's new Outlook 2007 savvy version is around the corner, has been rewritten, and the new attention features and performance are indeed impressive. Look for the public beta soon. I'll bet one of the biggest discussions enterprise IT folks will hear once this thing gets deployed will be "how do I turn Outlook's RSS feature off?!" Yes, Microsoft's RSS related announcements are great news for all of us in the space. Apple is doing the same of course, and the mail app has very basic RSS integrated into it too.

Technorati Tags: Attensa - attention - Attensa Feed Server - EnterpriseRSS - Enterprise RSS - Microsoft - Outlook 2007 - Microsoft Outlook - Enterprise 2.0 - KnowNow - NewsGator

Lotusphere 2007: Is Lotus Connections the real "Enterprise 2.0" McCoy?

What a difference a year makes, especially in LotusLand here in Orlando at Lotusphere 2007. Yesterday IBM formally introduced "Lotus Connections" to an enthusiastic and even surprised crowd. Here's the press release, the web site, and ZDNet's coverage. There were other announcements of course and there are breakout sessions on everything IBM/Lotus including Notes, Domino, and WebSphere. But, the excitement and focus is clearly around Connections. This is the first true "Enterprise 2.0" Suite. Focused around Social Networking, it is integrated from the ground up, very simple to learn and use, and can be used a la carte. The Five components are; Profiles (people), Communities, Blogs, Dogear (tagging), and Activities. I think it's really well done.

So, is this Lotus Connections vs. Suite 2.0?

Intel's Suite 2.0 (to be fair this is Intel Capital, not the software people at Intel behind it) will have a tough time against this offering - IMHO. While the two offerings are different, there is considerable overlap. The most important distinction is that this suite was built as an integrated solution from the get-go and even more importantly is built on one platform. S2 is from 4 or more vendors, cobbled together by SpikeSource, and contains components utilizing both LAMP and .NET platforms. And will reportedly run $150 - 200 per seat. I have no idea what IBM will be charging.

So why is our company here? Attensa is showing some exciting new things publicly for the first time. We are also seeing some faces light up to our attention-laden (auto-prioritizing) "river of news" aggregator sitting inside of Hanover (Lotus code name for next version of Notes) as well as inside of Lotus SameTime (their enterprise IM product) that has some 15 million users in the enterprise I am told. We've also seen strong interest in our Outlook 2007 savvy version too. More on all of this soon.

Technorati Tags: lotusphere+2007 - lotus+connections - suitetwo - attensa - attention - sametime - social+networking

The Five Temptations of a CEO - "A Leadership Fable"

I am involved in our region's trade industry, known as the Software Association of Oregon (SAO), and next week I am on a panel with two other CEOs for one of the many events we hold for members and non-members in special interest groups that includes leadership, marketing, human resources, etc. This particular one, lead by executive recruiter Pamela Jones, is centered around a new best selling book - or "leadership fable" as it is called - entitled The Five Temptations of a CEO. I just finished reading it, it is about an hour read at most, and I recommend it highly. I must admit I was dubious at first that I would enjoy it or even get anything out of it - but I did. While geared for CEOs, any manager will benefit from this quick read.

Here's the amazon.com review, which also describes the temptations:

Imagine running into the ultimate management mentor late one night on an otherwise deserted commuter train, and walking away from the strange encounter with an encapsulated guide to success in the corporate world. That's exactly what screenwriter and business coach Patrick Lencioni has done in The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable, placing his tale in an easy-reading and thought- provoking kind of self-help novel.

Designed to be read in a single sitting, this book uses the unexpected meeting between troubled high-tech honcho Andrew O'Brien and a mysterious old man named Charlie to explore a series of common traps that can unwittingly ensnare any hard-driven executive. Lencioni hones in on the five "temptations" of the workplace: desires to jealously guard career status, consistently remain popular with subordinates, unfailingly make correct decisions, constantly strive for an atmosphere of total harmony, and always appear invulnerable. A discussion of the story's events and their real-world implications follows, as Lencioni shifts from screenwriter mode to business coach to help answer some of the questions he raises. --Howard Rothman

The net, net of this book for me personally is that I am guilty of all of these temptations to some degree, and expect that tomorrow morning I will begin my day with different expectations of myself and my crew.

Here's the author's web site the table group which includes other books, consulting, etc.

Technorati Tags: Attensa - The Five Temptations of a CEO - the table group

Enterprise RSS has arrived, check out the Infoworld review

I've been asked by many about my take on the Infoworld review, and for the most part the Attensa blog post on it says it all from where I sit, so check it out here. The Attensa Feed Server finished up in the middle, and overall it pretty much reads and is rated like a three way tie between Attensa, KnowNow and NewsGator. Here's NG founder Greg Reinacker's take. The most important effect of the article to me is that it is a wake up call for many in IT that aren't paying attention to the obvious benefits of RSS for business.

The majority of professionally run IT organizations look at more than one offering before pulling the trigger on a solution from any new vendor. The NewsGator offering is very, very similar to ours, even more so than the review chronicled. What wasn't covered in the review was "total cost of ownership" or installation experience. These two items are our sweetspots. It is my understanding that the reviewer looked at all three offerings via the Internet (aka a hosted user experience) and didn't have the very relevant experience that IT must endure to install software behind the firewall.

Literally all of our pilots and customer wins so far have been in environments where the Attensa Feed Server (AFS) is the second or third product reviewed/piloted. The devil is in the details, and I am very pleased with our market position and performance to date. AFS was last to market with our enterprise server, and its only been available a few months now, but kudos to the team and pilot customers who worked with us on our 1.0 release and making it so solid. I've been in this business for 21 years now, and it is a rare start when a "1.0" release is so competitive - or even preferred.

AFS is the first in a suite of offerings on our road map built upon our AttentionStream technology (which is foundational with our client-side technology as well) and will be an increasingly obvious differentiator in this three horse race that for now is focused primarily on rudimentary RSS plumbing. Information overload mitigation is where the juice is - and where we are focused. Stayed tuned for some more announcements soon.

Technorati Tags: attensa - attention - enterprise rss - newsgator - knownow - attensa feed server -

I love being second (and can't believe I just wrote that)

A few weeks back I posted about the proverbial rising tide raising all boats in the enterprise RSS market, garnering a bit of attention in our little corner of the world for recognizing our competitors and (gasp) actually linking to them (NewsGator and KnowNow) as well. I even cheesily referenced the business classic "Coopetition." I am on a plane now returning to Portland after a quick trip to San Francisco and an overnight visit in New York with my lead investors. I met up with our VP sales Rich Rudolph who had been on the east coast all week meeting with current and prospective customers. Wow, what a week he had! These long flights back are always a great time to not only catch up on email but to reflect upon what larger trends the overall market appear to be experiencing- and of course their affect on our particular business.

So, here's what is coming through to us here at Attensa loud and clear;

1. Enterprise RSS is here NOW and the traditionally sluggish enterprise customer is anything but.
2. RSS for Blog posts and news headlines are cute but not driving RSS in the enterprise - business/competitive intelligence, wikis, rss enablement of enterprise apps are.
3. Microsoft's IE, Vista, and Office 07 are raising awareness big time but IMHO won't deliver what the enterprise needs - client OR server side, so far our customers and prospects agree btw.
4. RSS Enterprise Servers such as ours are a new category altogether so be prepared to do a pilot (and make sure your product actually works...this is a big one!)
5. One must smile, and contain one's excitement. It's not that often that big businesses (en masse) are at the forefront of a technological shift that we are witnessing today with RSS - with checkbook in hand no less.

So, what about the title of this post? Anyone who knows me (and my team) are acutely aware of our LOVE for winning. And, yes, being second still sucks in most situations. Earlier in my career I started and guided two smaller software companies into leadership positions. At both of these companies, Extensis and Now Software (sold to Qualcomm), we were frankly not first at anything - just better when it counted. Better products, Better technology, Better performance, Better execution. Being better matters, being first doesn't.

Enter Attensa.

We're not first, and in some instances on customer visits not even second - BUT- we're batting 1000 as the chosen solution for the enterprise customers we've touched so far. Attensa is admittedly just getting started, but things are eerily and wonderfully familiar to me.

Why?

Here goes my top 10 in no particular order in what's resonating for us with Enterprise customers;

1. Make sure your product actually works and can be installed in hours. Not promises, today.
2. LDAP integration is required by the big boys and we actually even make it easy. Go figure.
3. Be able to support multiple Exchange servers.
4. Have a mobile strategy, so far BlackBerry is key.
5. Sync. sync. sync. It's not a product, it's a feature, but you should have it...we sync with the new MSFT common feed store too. It's not rocket-science, but it matters.
6. Have analytics, IT cares. Bonus for "attention" analytics.
7. Make sure users can read RSS offline, a web only client solution is just lame...so have multiple options, the customer decides desktop by desktop what works best for their users.
8. User experience counts, and is often overlooked.
9. Have an enterprise legacy application strategy (our is Attensa Connect) and ...drum roll....
10. Don't drop your prices just to get the business, it just makes you look like a chump.

P.S. After all that show them your attention technology so their users don't drown in 1,000 or so RSS items they'll be getting per day. It will blow them away. ; )

 

Technorati Tags: Attensa - Attention - RSS - Enterprise+RSS - NewsGator - KnowNow - IE7 - Common+feed+store - Extensis