Clarity on PLM

A quick peek into some research on … on social computing for product development. Why does Facebook miss the mark? Can it be fixed? I have been talking for some time about the potential value of social computing in PLM and have mentioned before why Facebook will fail. I am preparing for a presentation next week, and decided to pull my thoughts together. So here they are, I look forward to your feedback.

The Research Findings

There are two parts to the findings. The first is a list of concerns that I have heard, here is a short list:

• What relevance do status comments and photos have to do with serious engineering?
• How will we protect intellectual property?
• What does Facebook know about business processes or how to manage them?
• What does Facebook know about engineering data? CAD files? Projects? Engineering in general?
• Why would I trust my business performance to a technology platform like Facebook that doesn’t appear stable or perform well (sorry Facebook, that is just my practical experience not a sound technical analysis)?
• How do I have time to pay attention to this in addition to everything I already do?
• How do we address security concerns?

OK, part two. Can it be fixed? Yes, but I doubt they will do it. There are two reasons:

• They are not focused on this and don’t have domain expertise
• They don’t have the ability to connect to the underlying context, the product data

But let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. Let’s see what Facebook can teach us about PLM. Here are my thoughts (and if you happen to be in Helsinki next week stop by to see this live):

Implications for Manufacturers

Don’t look to tools like Facebook to help you with social computing in PLM. But don’t discount the concepts. Learn from them. They are compelling. And manufacturers are getting started. In fact, I look forward to sharing research that I am doing with Kalypso that gives some great insight on what companies have been doing.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on Facebook failing in PLM, I hope you found it interesting. Yes, I know they didn’t design to tool for product development, so I am really not picking on them. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective.

Please feel free to review more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity.

A quick peek into some research (and some “mythbusting”) on a post by Christopher Null on Yahoo News titled “Facebook and business don’t necessarily mix.” Great, catchy headline. But does it really reflect the underlying research from MIT? I don’t think so. I will also share some comments posted on the PDMA blog from a study by Kalypso that don’t sync up with the commentary. And, I will provide an opportunity for you to speak your mind by participating in a current research study on social media and product innovation.

Commentary and Reactions

I don’t know the author of the post, but when I read it something didn’t sit right with me. For the most part, maybe it was that the title of the post didn’t match the underlying premise. To be fair, I know that some editorial gets “help” with their titles to grab attention (which this one certainly did, at least to me). But here are my thoughts (and feel free to “bust” them yourself, I realize I don’t own all the right answers).

Facebook and Business Don’t Necessarily Mix (Busted) – OK, I know I am picking on the title. But let’s own up to two realities:

1. You don’t have a choice. People on social networks are going to talk about your products. Whether you initiate the conversations or someone else does (customers or competitors), it is going to happen. As the post in PDMA ”Do you use social media in innovation?” points out, Social media on your terms is a much better idea than letting others take control of it for you. You MUST get ahead of this.

2. This isn’t what the MIT research says. The post Mr. Null references, “Pitch may fail on Facebook – Study: Social media don’t always create good buzz“, is much more aptly titled. What is says is that buzz can be positive or negative, and that it can actually hurt sales. According to the Boston Herald blog, the research (which I haven’t read, and is not published yet as far as I know) quotes the author as saying that “found that online buzz only helps when new products are at least half as good as consumers expected.” Now that is interesting! The author, P.J. Lamberson, an MIT Sloan School of Management visiting assistant professor, is said to use math to study large networks.

“Conventional Wisdom” (Plausible) – Mr. Null starts his article with “conventional wisdom now holds that if you want to have a successful product launch, you need to exploit Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace to get the word out about your product.” Is this really conventional wisdom? Are most companies using social media today? My experience says no, but I could be wrong. I will admit, my focus is more on social computing for product innovation, product development, and engineering (PLM) and not product launch. But my experience says that companies are experimenting with the use of social media, but it is far from standard operating procedure. The only evidence I have is from some preliminary results from the study being run by Kalypso (Disclosure: I am helping them run the study) that indicates that the use of social networking and social computing in product launches is still not fully developed. In fact, only about 1/2 of companies are using social media for product launch. Further, companies that are using social media are only using it on a small percentage of their initiatives. In other words, we are very early in the use of social media, and it is far from conventional wisdom. On the other hand, the preliminary results show that about 90% of companies that are using social media for innovation are planning to increase usage next year, with none indicating they were reducing it.  Why is this Plausible and not Busted? The research is not done – please participate in the survey and I will share results back with you via the blog.

Bottom Line (Busted) – After being generous with the last mark, I was fully planning to Confirm the post’s bottom line. Then I read it again to copy it here, and I disagree. “The bottom line is simple: Viral marketing, in which a conversation about a product is actively encouraged, can turn good or bad in ways that traditional marketing and advertising typically cannot. Unless a business pays careful attention to the tone of that conversation, the company could find itself shelling out millions on a viral ad campaign, only to have the unwanted effect of decreasing sales instead of increasing them.” I copied the whole comment over, because I agree with the first part. Yes, viral marketing can turn bad. But then it says business need to pay attention to the tone of the conversation. The underlying study (from what I can see) doesn’t say that. It says that your products have to meet expectations. In other words, it’s saying you can’t just manage the tone because it is out of your control.

Implications for Manufacturers
So what should manufacturers do? Learn from the study. What I hear is don’t over-hype your products, and don’t try to push a bad product through social media. It seems to me the harder you push how great a product is, the more likely you are to get dissenting view from customers. The study doesn’t say your product has to be good, it just has to meet expectations at least half-way.

Continue to experiment and learn. Social media is changing the way we interact with products. Be a part of the change and experiment. The last bit or preliminary data I will share from the Kalypso study is that those that are doing it are seeing business benefits (revenue, time to market, reduced cost). This is real, get on it.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on social networking and business, I hope you found it interesting. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective. Please feel free to review free research and white papers about product innovation and product development from Tech-Clarity.

What I learned this week… came from a Twitter message responding to my blog. I thought that seemed appriorate given that we were discussing social computing and social networking. The message was in response to a post the other day about Going Social with Product Development, pointing me to the embedded video. The post discussed the use of social computing techniques in product innovation, product development, and engineering. 

Note: Thanks to 3DPerspectives for passing this along

The Video

This video is a very straight-forward explanation, using simple terms and a practical example. Well done.

Implications for Manufacturers

I focused more on the internal uses in my research, because I feel those will be the first capabilities adopted. What I liked is that this video really focuses more on innovation in external communities. While I think this kind of example involves more thinking in regards to where the business value lies as compared to collaboration within the corporate social network, I also think the potential for developing a unique and compelling business model is higher and may offer higher returns. I think it’s good for manufacturers to start adopting social computing in their current PLM environment, while exploring the benefits of leveraging external communities for greater innovation.

So just a short and sweet link to the video with some of my thoughts, I hope you found it interesting.

A quick peek into some research on … how manufacturers are taking advantage of social computing and “Web 2.0″ technologies to raise the bar on product development performance in my new report Tech-Clarity Insight: Going Social with Product Development: Improving Product Development Performance with Social Computing. The paper discusses the intersection of social computing and new product development (NPD) processes and tools. I have posted frequently about the intersection of social computing and PLM and product innovation, and this research provides some examples on how these strategies are starting to play out for manufacturers like Microsoft (think PC hardware and game consoles, not Windows) and Pitney Bowes.
The Research Findings

The paper discusses uses of social computing from the basics of collaboration to the adoption of more innovative business models. Most companies will start with more conservative extensions to existing processes like design collaboration. In these cases, incorporating tools like instant messaging into the product development workflow can help streamline interactions. Capabilities like presence detection and interactive file sharing help make existing collaborative processes better. For many companies, these capabilities are readily available and require little change to underlying business processes.

Other forms of communication, such as blogs and wikis, offer a combination of better communication and knowledge management. These online discussion tools change the product dialogue from a one-way push of information to a two-way, interactive, dynamic, electronic conversation to help people better share information and ideas. Beyond better communication, the simple fact that the conversations are happening centrally and in electronic format turns product-related discussions and decision-making into a searchable knowledge asset.

Social computing can also be used to extend collaboration and information sharing to broader communities. This allows product developers to collaborate with the people they know, but also extend their search to find others in the corporate network that have valuable knowledge and expertise that previously would have gone untapped. By connecting people around product and project context, companies enable “social discovery” which fundamentally changes the available talent and expertise available to a project.

Beyond the corporate community, companies can also develop new product intellectual property (IP) from social computing. By extending the online community to customers and the market, new opportunities to gather “voice of the customer” and test ideas emerge. While these concepts require more change to the business and the way it operates, they also offer an even greater potential return by leveraging larger communities.

Implications for Manufacturers
The implications break down into two categories. The first implications are about the applicability and importance of social computing in product development. You have probably heard me talk about this before, and this report helps confirm and expand my thoughts on the subject. There is clearly something of value happening with the intersection of this exciting and popular new way of communicating and the business of developing profitable products.

The second set of implications fall into the category of practical advice and lessons learned to take advantage of this new opportunity. The opportunities are available, but the most important thing is that manufacturers don’t discount the applicability of social computing concepts based on their personal experience with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, or any other social networking sites. Manufacturers have to see through the use of these communication techniques for “fun” and see the significant business potential. This potential will likely never come from the public social networking sites, but instead by incorporating these “Web 2.0″ concepts into existing infrastructure and product development solutions. This is the most practical method to both achieve the value, but also ensure that product data and intellectual property (IP) is protected and that the solutions are used in the right context – to improve products and projects that drive corporate profitability.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on social computing in product development, I hope you found it interesting. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective.

Please feel free to review more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity

What I learned this week … came from some research I have been doing for a client. As a part of it, I have been spending a little more time getting to know the “Idea Management” software space. The conclusion that I am drawing is that while there are some mature software solutions to manage ideas, there are also a host of other specialty solutions that help generate the idea in the first place, analyze the idea, or further develop it.

Beyond Managing Ideas

I have always felt that there is more to idea management than “managing ideas.” That isn’t to say that simply managing ideas – including capturing them, categorizing them, and making them easy to retrieve is not important. What I am finding is that there are also solutions that:

• Filter and group ideas
• Prioritize and rank ideas
• Collaborate on ideas

Before Managing IdeasAnd of course in order to manage ideas, you have to have some. This is where some really creative solutions are popping up (or at least popping onto my radar screen). There are solutions that:

• Stimulate the submission of ideas
• Target and focus ideas on specific topics
• Provide a marketplace for those with ideas to meet those searching for them
• Account for rewards and recognition for ideas / innovation

Ideas and Social Computing

Some other interesting things I am running across include companies that are leveraging social networking and social computing to tap into communities for ideas and innovation. This is a very interesting topic by itself, including crowdsourcing among other techniques.

Idea Management as an Ecosystem

So there is a lot of variety in the “Idea Management” software ecosystem. Of course, many solutions cover more than one of the capabilities listed above. But like PLM – and even more than PLM – there is not a uniform, mature footprint shared by the competing solutions. There is a lot of innovation happening in innovation software.

So that is what I learned, I hope you found it interesting. Who knew? I didn’t, if you did let us know about it. And if you know more than I do, please share it with all of us. What am I missing? What vendors should I learn more about?

What I learned this week …came from an article in The New York Times by Alex Wright. The article, Mining the Web for Feelings not Facts, was a great look into a concept that is new to me, an emerging field called “sentiment analysis.” The article defines sentiment analysis as “translating the vagaries of human emotion into hard data.” The examples show companies using data analysis techniques to gain insight into what social media (such as social networks and blogs) are saying about their company. My thoughts immediately turned to the value this information would have to product developers to understand how customers feel about their products, and what a great tool this could be in the social computing toolkit for PLM.

Sentiment Analysis

I won’t repeat all of the fascinating things the article says, and instead recommend you take a few minutes to read it. It is very interesting, and an exciting new concept. Here are some of the key points from my perspective:

• Sentiment analysis opens a “window into the collective consciousness of Internet users”
• Opinions are a kind of “virtual currency“
• Social media offers a “rich vein of market intelligence“

The article points out that this is a new, imperfect science and mentions some interesting pioneers of the concept. It also introduces a new book which is on my “to read” list titled Opinion Mining and Sentiment Analysis by Bo Pang and Lillian Lee.

My Thoughts  – Sentiment Analysis in PLM

So how can this social computing approach be used to develop more profitable products? If we can gather feedback on products, product ideas and competitive offerings rapidly it gives us the opportunity to react early to – or ahead of -  a trend. Many manufacturers are starting to monitor social networking sites like Twitter to see what people are saying, but for the most part it is manual except for filtering on keywords. Currently, the review and analysis depends on people. This is not a sustainable approach for product managers and product marketers to sift through mountains of comments, at least in my opinion. But if social computing techniques can detect and alert them to potential changes in market opinion that they should pay attention to, that could provide the input needed to help steer product development (or at least product marketing, if changing the product quickly is not an option).

Product managers are already overwhelmed with input, and the Internet is creating even more every day. The information is valuable, but takes time to review and interpret. If computing algorithms can help decipher and summarize, then product developers can focus on the important trends as opposed to sifting through the haystack to find them.

Implications for Manufacturers

This is just one more example of how companies are trying to leverage social computing to improve their product innovation, product development, and engineering performance. There is clearly something going on here, something that offers significant advantages to the manufacturers that can figure it out and use social computing to their benefit. This example is part of what I call “social discovery,” which is a more advanced concept than more straight-forward uses of social computing in PLM such as enhancing collaboration. For more thoughts on social computing in PLM, you can click on the “social computing” tag on the ClarityonPLM site, or start with these thoughts on social product development and social computing in PLM.

So can we mine the web for emotions and use that market intelligence to drive product development? I think there is some real potential, among other opportunities that social computing and social networking are opening up. I hope you found it interesting. Who knew? I didn’t, if you did let us know about it.

Note: No, the picture has absolutely nothing to do with mining social networks, but I Googled “mind reading machines” and this is what came up. It made me smile, so I thought I would share it with you.

What I learned this week …came from a side conversation during some research I am working on in the innovation systems ecosystem. I was discussing the importance of different solutions in the space with this major electronic manufacturer, and he started to get very passionate when he turned the conversation to Web 2.0 and how it can improve innovation. With the work I have been doing on social computing in PLM, we ended up having a fascinating conversation about the potentials. It’s always nice when you see confirmation of a trend from an unexpected source.

My Thoughts on Connecting People to Improve Innovation

During our conversation, I kept coming back to a thought that I posted in one of my earlier discussions about the potential for social computing to revolutionalize PLM. I was trying to communicate the fact that social networking in PLM is more than just enhancing collaboration as we know it. I made the following observations:

• Collaboration – Working and sharing ideas with people you already know
• Social Networking in PLM – Discovering new people and ideas that can further your product innovation and engineering efforts
• In short, the difference is about discovery

I tried to make the point that “discovery” in product innovation, product development, and engineering was the new value that can be tapped into with social computing. Social computing techniques will also enhance existing collaboration techniques, but this is the really exciting stuff to me. How can we leverage our “social” business networks to tap into the vast amount of knowledge available to us?

His Thoughts on Connecting People to Improve Innovation

Without sharing any of my views, our conversation turned from the ability to search for product knowledge to the need to search for the people associated with the product knowledge. It was a totally unexpected shift in the conversation, because it is not directly in line with the particular research I was discussing with him. Of course that is what made the conversation so valuable. He told a story that was very similar to my past experience. One of the key values in finding engineering or innovation knowledge is to then find the people associated with it. In turn, the value may come from the discovery of the deliverables (designs, research, products, etc.) but also from collaborating with the creator of the deliverables. After all, there is knowledge in the deliverables. But there is probably even more knowledge available from the man or woman that created the knowledge!

So given recent conversations about putting the people in PLM, people centric PLM, and focusing on people vs. process in PLM in the PLM blogosphere, I thought it was great to see the intersection of PLM with social computing and innovation. Very exciting. I hope you found it interesting. Who knew? I didn’t, if you did let us know about it. And I look forward to sharing more of the conversation as that research makes its way to the public eye.

What I learned this week … was sparked by a small article by Jennifer LeClaire at newsfactor.com. The article was short and sweet, and announced that Verizon Adds Social Networking To FiOS TV Service. So other than the fact that I like FIOS and this points to further consolidation between TV and multi-media computing (which I think is both cool and invetible), why did I care? It reminded me that social computing is a capability, and that how you apply it – and in what context – can turn it into something very unique. That is what Verizon is starting to do with their TV service, and exactly what the PLM community needs to do with social computing in product development.

What FIOS is Doing (Conceptually)

In brief, what FIOS is doing is trying to understand how the trend towards social networking can make their television offering more interesting to the consumer. Interactive TV has been talked about for a while, and although I am not expert on the subject I now recognize that my little cable convertor box is turning into a pretty powerful (and very programmable) media serving computer. But why does Verizon want to get involved in our social networking? And why would we let them? It is simple – CONTEXT. What Verizon is doing (from what I can gather) is allowing us to network about their programs. But not just network about them in a standalone fashion (would we really need Verizon to do that?), but social network in a real-time, embedded, integrated way with the programming. To me, that is what is important about this announcement from a conceptual basis.

Importance to Social Computing PLM

Let’s take the conceptual nugget – that Verizon thinks that their programming is more compelling and valuable if we can share, interact, and communite about it in context - and apply it to product innovation, product development, and engineering. Isn’t this exactly what we are talking about with social computing in PLM? Anybody could try to use Facebook, Twitter, or a host of other technologies and use them in a standalone fashion. But the real value will come from social computing that is tightly integrated into the context of products and product development. That is why I believe it will be the PLM vendors like PTC, Dassault Systemes, or Siemens that will bring these capabilities to PLM. Or, perhaps specialty providers like vuuch that know the PLM systems and how to integrate with them. It will take domain expertise in the business of designing and developing products to understand and incorporate social computing into the fabric of PLM. For more on social computing in PLM, see What I Learned: Is Social Product Development Viable without PLM?and What I Learned: We are not Going to Build an Airplane on Facebook.

Implications for Manufacturers?

Social compting is here and growing. Social computing in PLM is coming. I believe that Verizon is experimenting more than anything. They are trying to take a leading position to see what will work and what will not. They are a first-mover in social networking in TV. They will make mistakes and learn from them. They are being proactive and taking a leadership position. Likewise, now is the time for manufacturers to start the process of learning about social computing in PLM, and get their feet wet. There will be some stops and starts, potentially, but there will also be rewards for those that get it right.

So that is what I learned this week, I hope you found it interesting. Let me know what you think. And I look forward to Tweeting with you about the Flyers hockey games once I get myself back over to FIOS!

What I learned this week… came from conversations with manufacturers and SaaS vendors over the past year. I believe the market is ripe for a SaaS approach to PLM. When it comes to product development, every organization strives for efficiency, flexibility, better collaboration (internally and externally), and easier upgrades. Yet, business models that could enable such benefits, such as Software-as-a-service (SaaS) have not been widely adopted to support product lifecycle management. The ongoing economic malaise, however, is driving manufacturers to rethink how they deploy PLM, and other enterprise software systems.

One consistent point of feedback I have heard is that green-field opportunities (where there is no incumbent PLM solution) are the low hanging fruit for SaaS – no surprise there. This is why for the most part, deployments are mostly at small to medium size businesses, or in a division within a large company, where easy deployment, management and upgrade are of paramount importance. Typically, it’s difficult for the division champion of a SaaS approach to sell the concept to executives of putting a company’s product crown jewels online. And the concern isn’t just security; in many cases it’s performance: does the system have the ability to scale and handle large CAD models, and enable real time collaboration across the globe?

Social Product Development can Drive SaaS
One reason why I think 2009 (and following years) will be the year of the SaaS PLM model are the pervasive trends of social networking and open innovation. Companies in markets as diverse as complex discrete and fast moving consumer goods recognize the power of collaborating quickly with each other, suppliers, and customers during the new product development and launch process. And social networking and open innovation – “social product development,” if you combine the two – is the perfect venue in which to do this; the ideal foundation for this open approach is SaaS.

Implications for Manufacturers?
I don’t believe that SaaS will replace “traditional” PLM; a hybrid approach will persist. There will still be the need for local CAD data management so small engineering and design workgroups can quickly iterate on an idea or design, and secure certain information behind the firewall, not in the cloud. Hybrid models, at least at large companies, will persist for the near future – for example local data, CAD design, and manufacturing process management within the four walls, and the “business layer” of PLM such as customer needs management, product portfolio management (PPM), direct materials sourcing, and collaborative design (assuming a strong authorization system is in place) in a web based, service oriented system. Regarding PPM, however, I think many manufacturers will likely want to maintain much of the information about their product portfolio locally, and make only appropriate segments of the information available via their web interface.

A hybrid approach can be beneficial because SaaS PLM vendors have strengths that can complement an existing PLM implementation. For example Arena Solutions excels at BOM management and offers portfolio and supplier management capabilities, brightidea.com and Arc90 (with their Kindling app) focus on CNM, Accept Software provides CNM and PPM in a SaaS model. In the apparel & footwear world, Zweave and World Fashion Exchange provide line planning, calendar management, and supplier collaboration in a modular, SaaS format.  A flexible, open approach such as this could help accelerate enterprise-wide adoption of PLM, particularly in fast moving markets that are newer to PLM, such as apparel and CPG.

So that is what I learned (or have been thinking about) this week. Let me know what you think: is it finally time for SaaS to make its mark in PLM?

What I learned this week…is that it is really fun to pick on Facebook because it doesn’t have the capabilities to support product innovation, product development, and engineering. Of course, it was never intended to and that is probably not a market that they are really very interested in. But it is fun, and also helps to bring home some of the requirements that are important for social computing in PLM. This post started as a reply to Stan’s comment on my not building an airplane on Facebook post, and I realized after about 17 pages of comments that maybe I had better turn it into a blog post. Thank you Stan for bringing up a lot of very good questions.

Some Good Questions

Stan brought up a lot of good questions. Some I have thoughts for, others are just good questions that will require the thoughtful development of a solution – one that works in the real, complicated world of product innovation, product development, and engineering (and yes, just to take one more shot at it, that is not Facebook). I have pulled out what I consider some core questions from the comment and offered my thoughts below (hopefully well paraphrased):

How do we have Time to Pay Attention to This (in addition to everything else)?

People will make time for what is valuable. If people can get the information they need faster through social computing capabilities, then it will pay for itself. If we can eliminate 90% of status e-mails (and their redundant replies) then we will save time overall. Or, if we gain access to technical, market, or customer insight that we didn’t have access to before, the value will come in more profitable products. Social computing should be replacing innefficient communications and processes with more efficient and/or more effective ones. If not, it is just a sinkhole for time. As much fun as it might be to share Dilbert cartoons with coworkers, social computing in PLM must focus on enhancing communication and collaboration in a business context.

What Good is Sharing Status Updates (like Facebook)?

I believe status, even like Twitter or Facebook, can offer business value. But it has to be status in a business context - not a social context. For example, there is little business value in me knowing that you are visiting your son for the holidays. But if we are coworkers and I know you are visiting one of our key suppliers next week, I might be able to leverage your visit to accomplish some of my goals with that company as well. Or if we are on a project together and you say “I am redesigning the left widget today,” I might really like to know that because I am working on the right widget, and we may be making incompatible decisions. Considering the distance between team members these days (globalization, outsourcing, etc.) I probably won’t hear about this at the water cooler or over the cube wall, but maybe on a “social” network we are both on for our project. This is where a company today could use an internal tool like Yammer or maybe even SharePoint.

What Good is Sharing Photos (like Facebook)?

I think the commenter may have been baiting me with this one. Sharing product information visually can go a long way. Whether it’s a 3D representation of my widget (with rotation, sectioning, measurement, explosion, etc.) or something simple like sharing a photo of some sketched artwork for the packaging, the old adage that “a picture is worth a thousdand words” rings very true in product development – particularly product development across language and cultural boundaries. Even Facebook photos (or Twitpics) could help here.

What about Security and Protecting IP?

Now, we start getting to some hard questions. If we believe that some of the things above are useful, we probably also believe that we only want to share the information with the right people. On Facebook, it might just be our competitors as easily as it is our coworkers. Or on Twitter, we are just posting into the public timeline (viewable by all, unless you protect your updates which makes it much less useful overall). Today’s social networkings are just not built to handle the kind of robust data access needs that you would find in a product development/engineering environment. What about auditability? Revision control? Regulations like ITAR? Nope, not yet – and probably not ever for a “social” social computing tool as opposed to a “business-oriented” social computing tool, or even a “PLM-oriented” social computing tool (through development or extension of an existing platform).

So that is what I learned this week, I hope you found it interesting. Thanks to Stan for his thought-provoking questions, and thanks to Facebook for being such an easy target. I doubt their product managers are reading this, but if you are please know that I realize you never intended to support these kinds of requirements. Well, except for stability, and I know you will get that right eventually. Let me know what you think.