This is the second in a series about the changes taking place on this blog in 2009. In Part 1, I wrote about the new name. Now, let’s look at industry coverage.

When this blog started in 2005, I wrote primarily about wikis in education. Over time, the focus expanded to wiki & enterprise social software adoption in all types of organizations. I also began to cover industry developments, and that started a series of conversations with people at several software makers, including: 37signals, Atlassian, JotSpot, PBwiki, Wetpaint, and Wikispaces.

In late 2006, I joined Atlassian as their wiki evangelist. I also wrote and published my second book, Wikipatterns. During that time, I focused this blog on the launch of Wikipatterns.com, promotion of the book, and continued my emphasis on wiki adoption strategies and examples. That focus on wiki adoption continues today. [Read more]

This morning at Macworld, Apple announced the new iWork ‘09 suite of productivity tools.

Included in the announcement is iWork.com, a web site that allows documents authored in Pages (Apple’s word processing software), Keynote (presentation tool), and Numbers (spreadsheet tool) to be shared online. Is this Apple’s answer to Google Docs and Microsoft’s Office Live? We’ll see.

For his new book Grown Up Digital, Don Tapscott interviewed 10,000 young people about their use of technology. His conclusion:

Technology is not technology to these kids. It’s like the air.

Tapscott, author of several books on technology, including Wikinomics (check out my Wiki ROI guest series on the Wikinomics Blog) and Growing Up Digital (1997), has observed the growing role of technology in the lives of the net generation - people born in the 1980s and 1990s who have grown up with technology as a part of daily life. But there’s a significant weakness in the presence of technology in these students’ lives: education.

Schools have struggled to get the resources to put enough computers in classrooms, and educate teachers on how to find and build high-quality digital curriculum materials. The underlying problem is that there’s not enough public money for educational technology, and what little is available is extremely hard to get. [Read more]

This is from Jason Rothbart of GroupSwim. Be sure to check out their on-demand collaboration tool. It includes a wiki, groups, discussions, and file sharing, and will help you better organize and manage projects, streamline collaboration, and inform & involve your team. Jason and I recently conducted a webinar on how to Improve Business Productivity Using Wikis. - Stewart

According to a study done by the Sand Hill Group and Neochange, the most critical factor (70% listed as number 1) for software success and return-on-investment is effective user adoption. Software functionality came in at 1% surprisingly, with organization change at 16% and process alignment at 13%. This is a remarkable result.

You can have the best software in the world, with the most sophisticated features, analytics and integration, blah blah blah, but if people don’t use it, it isn’t going to add value. I can’t tell you how many RFPs and software selection processes I’ve been involved with in prior lives that focus almost exclusively on tiny little, “knat’s ass” features that few people if at all will ever use. This study shows that focusing so much on features is missing the boat entirely. [Read more]

In Enterprise social media: Don’t forget, users are people too, Scott Schnaars of Socialtext makes the distinction between referring to those who use tools like wikis, blogs, social networks, etc. as people, instead of users:

People, on the other hand, have names. People share ideas and information. People form communities. People, are the backbone of your organization and their ideas, especially in a crumbling economy, are the ones that will make or break your company. People, not employees and certainly not users.

I’ve been making a conscious effort recently to use “people” instead of “users”, so Scott’s post hit home for me. It humanizes technology usage, and is a good reminder that paying attention to the real, specific needs of the people in your organization is the key to success when you introduce new tools. To wit: [Read more]

Kate Brodock’s tweet about Mitch Joel’s 09 Blogs to Watch in ‘09 got me thinking about the blogs I’m watching most frequently these days. Here are the first four:

• The Altimeter by Charlene Li - Charlene co-authored Groundswell, and launched her own company, Altimeter Group, to provide advisory and consulting on emerging and social technologies. She has a calm, authoritative, hype-free approach that makes her one of the strongest thinkers you can pay attention to.
• Transparent Office by Michael Idinopulos - Michael is writing some excellent articles on wiki & social software adoption in the enterprise. Well worth reading.
• The Heymarci Blog by Marci Alboher - I first started following Marci’s Shifting Careers column in the New York Times, but it was discontinued in late 2008. I like the New York Times, but this was a bad decision. Marci is an expert on building slash/careers - she wrote the book on it: One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success. Her advice has definitely helped me with my own career, and I highly recommend paying attention to her in 2009.
• The Gig by Nadira A. Hira - Nadira covers the Gen Y workforce from a first-person perspective. She’s a Gen Y-er, and does a great job both as a voice for Gen Y workers, and as an ambassador to other generations learning to embrace and understand how younger people work, and how it can mutually benefit them. [Read more]
  

This is the first in a series about the changes taking place on this blog in 2009. First, the new name: Future Changes. It has two tightly intertwined and complementary meanings:

1. A Play on Wikis

First, it is a play on the recent changes/revision history feature in wikis that keeps track of every revision made to each page. I wanted to take a forward looking spin on it, and emphasize that when you put information in a wiki, it becomes more easily found by others, diverse viewpoints are more easily incorporated, and as a result, it will be more relevant and useful.

2. Change as a Theme

Second, change is an important theme right now. In Things that change Seth Godin writes:

The best stories change over time. They change in ways that fascinate the consumer, and more important, they change in ways that are fun or important to talk about. [Read more]

Last week, I was reading A Signature Cadence on the excellent blog Rands in Repose. In the article, the author points out the importance of the small details that make up a site’s personality:

Do this. Take a moment to look on one of your favorite websites or weblogs and look for where they choose to sound like a friend you bumped into at the coffee shop. Once you start looking for it, it stands out. My favorite place to look is at the bottom of the page around the copyright.

It’s a little thing. In the huge pile of work building a website, the words chosen to deliver small messages might seem important, but these small words define a personality and both personality and reputation are built on decisions that feel too small to matter.

After reading that, I got to work building a better footer for Future Changes. So please scroll to the bottom of this page, have a look, and tell me what you think in the comments. [Read more]

According to new data from research firm iSupply, notebook sales have overtaken desktops for the first time in the latest quarter:

Preliminary figures for the quarter show notebook PC shipments shot up about 40% from the same period a year ago to 38.6 million, according to iSupply. Meanwhile desktop shipments fell about 1.3% to 38.5 million. [Read more]

Adam Kleinbeg has penned a hilarious list of the top ten things Santa needs to do in a Marketing Overhaul of Christmas. Here are my favorites:

Develop an iPhone app. Why? Don’t ask such silly questions. Just do it.

Behavioral targeting, obviously. Can you think of a better way to separate the naughty from the nice?

Tighter brand guidelines. Every spot on TV has a different Santa in it, which is bound to raise some eyebrows. [Read more]