Help anyone?!?

Ok after yesterdays Google 'Feedback' button I had another great chuckle today. Tried clicking the 'Help' button in the Quickr Migrator tool for DDM and got the following memorable response....

 :-)

Feedback? You bet!

With Google heading in a new and possible exiting direction with its Google+ project and their new Me on the Web tool I was checking out some of the new features and stumbled upon the Google Profile. Not something I had ever seen before (even though it supposedly has been around for a while) but nevertheless another Social Profile so why not try it out.

While doing so I ran into some simple things that I just didn't get from a usability point of view. One of them was that when I wanted to add links to the 'Links' section and choose the 'Manage Connected Accounts'  option I'm rerouted to another page. Nothing wrong there but when finished I don't see any option to return to the profile. Ok, yes of course I eventually tried simply closing it and that worked fine but it didn't feel logical to close it like that and gave me the uneasy feeling I might lose the data I had just provided. A simple "Finish" or "Return to Profile" button would have been nice.

I believe in the power of giving Feedback to help further the development of products and will not hesitate to give it when asked. So when I noticed the 'Feedback' button in the bottom lower corner of the Profile form I decided to report it back to Google as something they might be able to take into consideration.

And then....

So, first rule of involving your users: If you want their feedback and ask for it be ready to receive it!

Worldwide use of Social Networking

Interesting visualization of Social Network penetration world wide by Global Web Index. The Netherlands scores average when it comes to content sharing & messaging but considerable less when it comes to joining/creating groups. Not something I would have expected!
Most notable though I find are the figures for Japan. For a country so obsessed by mobile gadgets you would expect them to be more active on Social Networks as well.



Click here for a full screen representation of the graph

Social filesharing in MS Sharepoint vs IBM Connections

 A must for anyone thinking about implementing collaboration and/or document management!

IBM Champions

Most people reading this might already have heard it but earlier this week Ed Brill announced the 2011 IBM Champions list and much  to my surprise my name is on it. Knowing the names on that list I can only feel very humble to be in their presence.

This was a big and frankly unexpected honor, especially as lately I've really been struggling with my role in the community. As a Business Consultant I'm neither a hardcore developer nor a hardcore Administrator and it caused me to wonder what my contribution to the community actually is worth. I don't often have great development innovations to share or killer Admin tips so what do I have to contribute?! In general, I felt I didn't really have much to contribute at all lately.....

I had that doubt before. In 2009, while working on the Redbook for DomDoc migrations, I entered with the same trepidations. Why did they choose me and not my coworker who was much more the technical DomDoc specialist? What do I have to offer? This really bothered me and I put the question to the table. The answer I got was: We have technical specialists, we need people who can think from the business perspective and can relate to how the user thinks and use that to work on a solution.

That was a real eyeopener to me as for the first time I really understood that in IT technical skills alone aren't enough to create great software and that understanding your users, business problems and usability is equally as important. Still, being in a community of mainly technical people, it's easy to feel as if you don't have anything to contribute and I think that happened to me these last few months.

Seeing my name on that list earlier this week therefore really shook me up and made me think again about what it is I am and what I can contribute.

I came into the Lotus community 12 years ago after I made a remark about the usability (or lack thereof) of a FAQ database at the company I was working at. The answer I got was "if you think you can do better than make it better". I hadn't a clue how to, but I did think I could do better conceptionally. So I bought a book taught myself Lotus development, and took the challenge...

The decision to take that challenge 12 years ago made me become a member of this great community. Now its time to set myself a new challenge and proof I'm worth being part of this illustrious list.

Congratulations to all IBM Champions and and a big thank you to the election committee, IBM and the people that took the effort to nominate me.

Twitter DM's not private.... Weiner watch out!

Applications can use the Twitter API  to get you to grant them access to your twitter account without having to share your username and password. You would expect your DM's to be excluded though by default from the information (eg. Tweets, Favs, Lists, etc) that applications can than access or at least make it configurable. Apparently this is not the case! See this blog by Tweetster.de (in German) in which they unearthed it. It means that as of day 1 any application you granted "READ + WRITE" access to your Twitter account had access to your DM's and potentially could even send them out on your behalf.....?!?

Twitter seems to be aware and working on a solution (planned for the 30th of June) and has added a notification to the Access granting page:

I'm feeling a perfect 'Weiner' - excuse popping up here. " No sir, I didn't put those pictures up, it was a twitter app that I authorized to access my Twitter account! It took pictures while I was drying myself after a shower without me even knowing it and posted them to my DM's...It wasn't me, I swear!". Oh wait, too late, he admitted to putting them up there themselves.....

It just shows. Leave your Frankfurter out of it or the Germans will find it!

Thanks to @ThomasBahn for bringing it to my attention by tweeting about it!