Office 2.0
Why COSMO Matters During a Recession
During a recession, budgets get cut, and money is spent only for things that are absolutely necessary to a company’s survival. As a result, many projects get delayed, across the board, and IT projects are no exception. In fact, for the many companies that bought into Nicholas Carr’s view that IT doesn’t matter, IT budgets are among the first to be cut, which is the reason why the stocks of so many publicly-traded software companies are taking a plunge as I am writing these lines. Nevertheless, life must go on, even during the darkest hours of the mot brutal recession, and many projects still must be carried on, albeit with limited budgets. In such a context, using software licensed through the COSMO model might really help. Let me explain why. [Continue…]
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Office 2.0 Blog
Two and a half years ago, I started the IT|Redux blog, which primarily covered two topics: Office 2.0 and BPM 2.0. Today, the Office 2.0 thread is moving to the just released office20.com website (powered by Jive Software’s Clearspace). It will host the Office 2.0 Conference taking place every September, and continue the conversation throughout the year. The BPM 2.0 thread will eventually move to a new blog managed by Intalio, where it really belongs. [Continue…]
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Office 2.0 Conference Website
When we launched the first Office 2.0 Conference in the Summer of 2006, we thought we did everything in a rush. The event was announced on July 26, 2006, and a website was released on August 16. Less than six weeks before the event, which took place on October 12-13. But in retrospect, we really took our time, for until now, we did not even have a website. And the conference is less than a month away. Well, it was fun while it lasted, but some prospective attendees recently started to wonder whether we were going to have an event at all, so we fired our keyboards and mice this morning, and developed a brand new website in about eight hours. [Continue…]
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Monolab|Workspace San Francisco
While our Palo Alto space is filling up nicely, we’re starting to get more and more requests for a similar space in San Francisco. We gave our requirements to our real estate agent (Cornish & Carey), and they located some pretty cool properties. One of them in particular drew our attention, and I am happy to report that we might have found the perfect spot for the Monolab|Workspace San Francisco. [Continue…]
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David Allen at the Office 2.0 Conference
Three years ago, I read David Allen’s Getting Things Done seminal book on personal productivity. Finding ways to implement David’s extremely powerful yet deceptively simple workflow quickly became an obsession, and one of the primary motivations for developing the Office 2.0 concept. I later implemented my own version of David’s framework through the Extreme Productivity System, but it’s only when I met David and his team earlier this year that I really understood what the GTD was all about: it’s a way of life that goes beyond productivity, and can have a profound impact on one’s short time with the rest of us. Having made this discovery, all I wanted to do next was to share it with others. Unfortunately, David’s busy agenda and relatively small home office in Ojai, CA would make it difficult for my 3,000 regular readers to benefit from the very same experience. But I have some great news today: you will soon get a chance to meet David Allen in person, for he generously offered to open the upcoming Office 2.0 Conference with me. [Continue…]
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Monolab|Workspace Vancouver
Our Palo Alto building’s final inspection has been scheduled for Tuesday, July 29, after which we will be in a position to formally accept memberships. In the meantime, we received a request for 20 workstations in Vancouver, BC, and are considering moving this location up from Phase II to Phase I (details here). [Continue…]
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Partnership with Polycom
I am pleased to report that Monolab|Workspace just established a partnership with Polycom. Through this partnership, each workspace will be equipped with a fantastic Polycom HDX Media Center video conferencing system. The first system will be installed at the Monolab|Workspace Palo Alto, and should be ready to use at the launch party, to take place on July 14, 2008 (Bastille Day). Polycom will also join the upcoming Office 2.0 Conference as a Gold Sponsor. [Continue…]
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Monocle’s Top 25 Liveable Cities
I just arrived in Singapore for a two-day trip in the eponymous city, to be followed by Bangkok, Thailand. The 17 hours United Airlines flight with connection in Narita gave me the opportunity to pour through Monocle’s issue 15, volume 02, and its fantastic list of Top 25 Liveable Cities. Interestingly enough, the Phase I & II development plan for Monolab|Workspace (16 locations) includes 7 of Monocle’s favorite destinations. Phase III & IV will extend the list to 64 locations, and every single one of them is on Monocle’s list (extended with 5 challengers). [Continue…]
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Independence Day
On this glorious day, May is regaining her independence (from regular office work) by incorporating Monolab|Workspace, Inc., the company that will develop our workspace concept. We just received some paperwork from our lawyers (Fenwick & West), and are jumping head first into this new venture. Pretty exciting… [Continue…]
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Office 2.0 Conference 2008 Registration
The Office 2.0 Conference 2008 is just two months away, and it’s time for us to start working on it again. In pure IT|Redux fashion, the whole event will again be organized in 9 short weeks, with no staff, and in a paperless manner. Granted, we have two editions under our belt, and we pretty much know what works and what does not. So let’s do it again, and learn as much as we can along the way. [Continue…]
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A Better Traveling Experience
Now that we better understand the concept for the Monolab|Workspace, let’s take a closer look at its benefit for the frequent traveler, defined as someone accumulating over 100,000 qualifying miles per year (1K on United Airlines for example). In fact, let’s go through the main steps of a travel abroad, and identify simple ways to significantly improve the traveler’s overall experience, with a single goal in mind: reducing stress, by eliminating uncertainties. [Continue…]
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Micro Global Business
As we’re further developing the concept for the Monolab|Incubator, we’re starting to realize that our target market is not exactly the one we had in mind initially. While early stage companies remain our customers, we’re slowly expanding our focus from the solo entrepreneur to the already-formed start-up company. And for the later, we’re focusing on what we call Micro Global Businesses (MGB). [Continue…]
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I Love Technology
Nine years ago, on this very day, I was in Tokyo, speaking at what might have been the first local conference on Open Source. Back then, the only way to connect to the Internet on the go was by using a 28 Kbps modem, assuming you could afford the cost of a long-distance call to your home-based ISP, or would know the local dial-up number for AOL or CompuServe. Nine years later, at this very moment, I am writing this blog post sitting in a JR train on the Yamanote Line, connected to the Internet using a brand spanking new EMOBILE 3G modem bought in Akihabara, built by Huawei, and delivering a mind-blowing 7.2 Mbps. 257 times faster, sans wires. I love technology… Many thanks to Nicolas for his help in setting this up.
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Virtual Incubator Concept
Since we announced the creation of the first Monolab|Incubator, many people have asked us whether we will offer drop-in packages or not. We’ve given very serious considerations to this request, and came up with a virtual incubator concept that got the attention of many people, especially from the VC community. [Continue…]
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Lease Signed
May and I just signed the lease on the space we’re renting in Palo Alto downtown for the Monolab|Incubator. The address is 543 Bryant Street, half a block away from both City Hall and University Avenue. Essentially, Palo Alto’s epicenter. We decided to work on this project no earlier than May 25th (less than a month ago), May tendered her resignation on June 4th, and here we are three weeks away from our grand opening. Some people think we’re a bit crazy, and I can totally see why… This is getting fun!
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Floor Plan & Launch Party
The Monolab|Incubator project is moving full speed ahead. The floor plan is drafted, all required furniture and equipment are budgeted, and a launch party is scheduled. My Salesforce.com instance shows 61 sub-projects related to it, from setting up an Internet connection, to developing a Return on Investment model. [Continue…]
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Monolab|Incubator
Over the past couple of years, I have worked with a dozen start-ups in an advisory capacity. Through my interactions with entrepreneurs, and my personal experience starting Intalio, I developed a fair understanding for some of the challenges that most founders face when creating a company. Funding and hiring are among the most complex, and there is no substitute for direct experience there. But there is also a class of logistical problems that can be addressed with simple solutions, and can be shared across multiple companies. Here comes the Monolab|Incubator, which my wife May and I are starting together. [Continue…]
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Miscellaneous Updates
Between Intalio, which staff doubled in size over the past six months, extensive traveling around the world (over 50,000 qualifying miles flown so far this year), the occasional extreme productivity seminar, my training for the commercial pilot license, and the time spent with my family (Cf. Father Pride), I found it difficult to maintain a regular blogging schedule lately. I’m hopeful that I’ll find the right pace eventually, but in the meantime, here are some noteworthy updates on various fronts. [Continue…]
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On Salesforce.com and Google
Much has been written over the past two days on the Salesforce.com | Google partnership, and as the dust is settling down, it’s time for me to share my first impressions as a user of this pretty cool mashup. Yesterday, Marc Benioff asked me if it made Salesforce.com Office 2.0 worthy, and my reply was a resounding “Yes”. In pure Salesforce.com style, reality does not fully match the marketing hype surrounding the announcement, but this first release is real, works, and is the very best Office 2.0 integration I have seen in a long time. So let’s take a closer look. [Continue…]
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Free/Busy Calendar for Salesforce.com
Scheduling meetings is a time-wasting collaborative process that no amount of technology will fix until simple APIs get supported by the most popular calendaring applications. One could use scheduling services such as the newly-released Presdo (awesome job Eric!), but it’s not (yet) integrated with Salesforce.com. So if you’re like me and are using Marc’s platform to get things done, you might be interested by this little PHP script that a couple of friends wrote for me. [Continue…]