RE: Social Biz CG milestones (was: RE: for review - An Intro to Social Business Guide [via W3C Social Business Community Group])

   Hi Lads:

My comments bellow.

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*De:* "Crawford, Mark" <mark.crawford@sap.com>
*Para:* "public-socbizcg@w3.org" <public-socbizcg@w3.org>
*Enviado:* 14 de Novembro de 2012 22:02
*Assunto:* RE: Social Biz CG milestones (was: RE: for review - An Intro to
Social Business Guide [via W3C Social Business Community Group])

 Inline





>The W3C already sponsored 1 workshop and multiple Incubator / Community
groups.  A white paper was written, as well as other less formal documents.



MC: To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a workshop focused on
Social Business.  If you are referring to the W3C workshop on the future of
social networking, then I would submit the focus was entirely different.
As for the incubator group, I would once again submit that the focus was
different.   The Jam is the only exercise that I am aware of that focused
exclusively on the concept of social business, and although it was a great
start, I believe the proposed workshop will serve to take the effort of
this group in a direction that is needed if we are to fully understand what
the needs and thoughts are of the broader community



     JM: Dunno on the history, but I agree we should identify who the
target audience clearly is and what the expected call to action for them
should be.



                    MC:  Agreed.  It would be helpful if you could identify
the specific changes you would recommend for the Goals and Scope section.



   >I perceive the primary public social tool vendors (e.g., Facebook,
Twitter) have little interest to standardize the underlying social
technologies (e.g., how to exchange profile info) – because the value of
their companies is based on keeping that information locked up.



MC: I would not see this as a reason to not standardize.  Rather I would
submit that as we see more and more companies delivering tools to enable
social business, we will see the need for standardization grow independent
of Facebook and Twitter.  Those organizations are already in some respects
becoming in some respects long in the tooth and loosing favor with the
younger generations for their personal social needs, and their services are
ripe for the picking of software companies who wish to deliver tools that
enable a more business focused approach to social.



JM: I think also we are talking consumer space vs enterprise space. Right
now, the enterprise space is actively interested in a solution here as what
out there ( think Yammer, SF Chatter ) are either lacking adoption and/or
not solving the problem space effectively. Part of this is probably the
messaging and use-cases, which it sounds like this group can be a catalyst
in defining.





                              MC:  Agree again.  My response to Anne was to
highlight that many think of social as only applicable to consumer.  Our
group is ostensibly looking at enterprise.  Facebook and Twitter have some
value – especially in terms of analytics such as what we are doing with
HANA, but from a social business standpoint, I am less concerned with their
initial participation (disclaimer – SAP and Facebook have had a
longstanding relationship) and more concerned with businesses trying to
harness social in the enterprise for enterprise cost/efficiency/revenue
benefits. My thinking is that If the messaging is correct, and if
Facebook/Twitter see a trend that they can leverage, then they will also
participate.



 >  A separate set of independent geeks – mostly in Silicon Valley and
Portland, Oregon areas – are working on creating independent tools.  Those
folks apparently want to hack away more-or-less independently.



MC: I would submit that from an enterprise perspective, the last thing we
want are independent geeks left the control this space.  Creating a Social
Business requires tools that are reliable, supported, and interoperable.



JM: The independent tools may gain limited adoption in the consumer or low
end of the SMB market, but interoperability is the name of the game for
anyone of reasonable size. I think telling a story around OpenSocial ( once
that story firms up ) sounds like a reasonable leverage point there.



                                             MC:  Concur.  Many are working
to move OpenSocial to a more mature standards organization footing with a
greater focus on enterprise requirements.  The standard itself is gaining
traction, and it is clear to me that W3C needs to identify what the
relationship between the Social Web and Social Business using OpenSocial
should be.


AM : Agree. I belong to a group of alfa users of a tool called Hojoki. The
development team don't care about standards. They just use it as a
reference, they out all the effort on multiple system integration.



 > Work on security mechanisms, privacy, identity, etc is already underway
in other working groups.



MC: True.  But how does that negate the need for the workshop?


AM : I may be missing a point here. If this group wants to develop
standards we need members with technical expertise. If we don't have its
necessary to recruit. On the other hand this changes significantly the
scope of the group.  The idea is to develop standards about
interoperability of systems using social interaction? That's an interesting
challenge. Does this group wants to assume this responsibility, or wants to
be in the business layer?



> I hear several voices on this team enthusiastically promoting a
workshop.  Sorry to be a wet blanket and a naysayer, but I am not all clear
what the focus nor value would be in holding another workshop.  I do not
agree " support for the proposed workshop " is a foregone conclusion.



MC: Hmm.  It would be helpful if you identified the specific objectives of
the workshop you disagree with.



> Although IBM and perhaps others are apparently willing to provide some
financial support (Yay for those companies!) – my concern is what the W3C
would invest (via time and people), what would the W3C get out, and what
happens to W3C reputation for going around in circles on this topic.



MC: Once again, I would submit that Social Business as a specific topic is
still rather virgin for the W3C – with the exception of the Jam.



>"Social" is a huge topic these days.  I, too, am intensely interested in
the subject.  Yet I do not support moving forward with a workshop at this
point, for concerns given above.  To change my mind I would need to see A)
clear objectives; B) convincing evidence that key players would participate.



MC: It would be helpful if you identified the specific objectives in the
draft you disagree with.



JM: What I'm hearing here is a concern for having the target audience and
call to action defined better before we move towards a workshop. I guess my
question is where do we stand in regards to that at this point?



                                             MC:  Once again, I would point
to the draft workshop call for participation.  We identify at a general
level who we want to participate, but if you have thoughts on specific
organizations or types of organizations we should include, then please
suggest them.  In terms of the call for action, I would welcome your
thoughts on what might be missing or off topic in the Topics for position
papers list in the call for participation.



Kind Regards,

Mark