Included with this email are the minutes from the May
10th Meeting.

Thank you all of our speakers and attendees.

JZ
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Minutes of the Rocky Mountain Users Group 10 May 2005
Meeting:

Online Collaboration

About 50 people attended tonight's meeting.

MEETING SPONSORS
Microstaff (http://www.microstaff.com) provides pizza
and beverages. Microstaff also provides Creative and
Technical Talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing
Communications, and Software Development projects.

ONEWARE (http://www.oneware.com) pays for these
meeting minutes. ONEWARE is a Colorado-based software
company that provides semi custom web-based
applications.

Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) provides the audio
visual equipment.

NCAR provides free use of their facility for our
meetings.


ANNOUNCEMENTS
There is a quality assurance/technical writer position
and a flash developer position opening at
www.Architekture.com.

INTRODUCTION
Companies are increasingly needing their people to
work together to get things done. And with more team
members geographically dispersed over several offices
(or even countries), there is greater need for tools
to enable this collaboration. Online collaboration is
designed to make organization out of our information
chaos. See a review of online collaboration tools at
http://www.kolabora.com/reviews.htm#group_collaboration.

SPEAKERS
Tad Haas (tadhaas@...) is Business
Productivity Specialist for Microsoft who works with
large local customers using the latest Microsoft
technologies including Project Server. He has helped
many organizations evaluate and implement enterprise
project management solutions--focusing on the
supporting software technologies that facilitate
communication, collaboration, and execution of project
performance.

Mark D. Bell (mark.bell@..., 303-546-7923) is
founder, president, and CEO of Apprello Soft, Inc., a
Boulder company that develops ASP solutions for medium
and large businesses. Apprello Soft uses off-the-shelf
web development tools and platforms to rapidly create
solutions that address common business problems. The
company's first product is BCrevo(tm), an online tool
that enables Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery
plan development and coordinated recovery efforts. He
holds a degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering
and an MBA, both from the University of Colorado.

Allen Ellison (allen.ellison@...) is
president of Architekture.com, Inc. He has more than
20 years of software development, analysis,
information architecture, and technology development
experience. Architekture.com is a leading Macromedia
Flash development firm with recognized expertise in
Flash Communication Server and specializes in the
development of immersive, real-time multiplayer
simulations, as well as rapid prototype development
and real-time business collaboration applications.

-------------------
TAD HASS
Creating Business Value through Collaboration

Large and small companies face the same business
challenges. The only important difference is that at
small companies, specific individuals may feel a
greater impact of these challenges. All companies face
pressure to keep everyone in a team on the same page.
There are significant organizational barriers to
overcome.

Environment is a key aspect: People on a team may be
working in geographically separate areas, and even the
local environment can be very complex.

Collaboration involves end users, teams, the entire
company, and the community. Collaboration can be
unstructured, for example, when people are
collaborating by instant messaging or email.
Collaboration can also be structured when people
communicate through company portals that are
controlled. Often it is difficult to balance
structured and unstructured content.

Collaboration brings visibility, insight, and control.
It ensures that initiatives align with objectives. It
brings parts together to achieve a big-picture view.

Collaboration also helps sustain and create business
value.

Surveys indicate that ineffective communication is one
of the top ten barriers to effectiveness in IT
companies. Good communication creates a return on
investment (ROI), giving you a measurable payback.
Taking the time to collaborate electronically brings a
significant return.

Typically, collaboration has a 25% ROI, which is
impressive for any kind of investment. It also
provides a 15% improvement in productivity and time,
and a 20% improvement in project and process sharing.

These benefits apply equally to large and small
businesses, bringing a financial return. And it
doesn't matter very much which particular
collaboration tool you use, just so long as you use
one.

Nowadays there is a growing reliance on collaboration
as more of us spend more time working in collaborative
environments.

The benefits of a collaborative infrastructure
include:
-Integrated communications: simplifying the myriad
options is the key to value.
-Staying on the same page in a common work area. These
"work spaces" can be created by portals that allow
information to be shared from the same place.
-Making it easy to find people and information. You
can organize information by people, topics, etc. At
Microsoft, for example, I can search on an expertise
and get a list of people who are content experts.

Collaboration isn't always about big teams. It's just
as important to small teams and individuals. It stops
you from doing the same thing twice, and you don't
have information sitting in multiple places.

There are tools that can help with real-time
collaboration. Microsoft is working on a product
called Office Communicator, which helps keep instant
messages organized.

There is also Web-based collaboration like online
meetings and webinars. This saves money like travel
costs.

And if you are in project management, collaboration
increases the speed of project execution and
accelerates performance. It helps you do more with
less.

If you have questions, any of you are welcome to
contact me directly.

-----------------------
MARK BELL

Today I will be sharing with you an actual case study.
This is what happened when I tried to develop a
web-enabled collaboration system.

We were a very small company without a lot of
resources, and trying to convince other companies to
hire us for consulting. Most of the companies said "We
know that we need this, but we can't afford you right
now."

So how could I help them at a very low cost?

Our business was providing Business Continuity and
Disaster Recovery plans (BCDR). We wanted to enable
organizations to create, manage, and execute BCDR
plans. Our product had to be cheap, easy, and quick to
develop.

Requirements: web based, low cost, multiuser,
document management, collaboration, security, easy to
use

What did I do?
I bought Microsoft Access to do it, which turned out
to be a mistake. But in the process of discovering
that Access wasn't going to help me, I stumbled across
Microsoft SharePoint (www.microsoft.com/sharepoint).
There may be other tools out there, but that's what
worked for me. It was an accidental success.

Why SharePoint worked:
It eliminated the need for a development environment
It provides 90% browser-based development
It handles all the document management and
collaboration issues so that I could focus on the
application's value.

SharePoint does the heavy lifting so I don't have to
waste time reinventing the wheel.

With SharePoint I made a product called BCrevo(tm),
which provides:
-BCDR planning methodology
-project timeline
-planning templates
-training
-secure hosted ASP model
-internet self-sign up

The system can be hosted by others (an advantage of
web-based applications), so I don't have to own any
equipment for this. And with the automated sign-up, I
don't have to interact with every customer. You can
see how it works at
http://hs2020.sharepointsite.com/bc_manager.

If I hadn't found SharePoint, I wouldn't have this
company today. And this is critical--with Access, it
never would have happened.

-----------------------------
ALLEN ELLISON

I have a small tech company that I've run for three
years. We develop applications for simulations. About
a year ago, we bid on a prototype project for a
multiplayer, real-time crisis management simulation
package. Simulation is a form of collaboration. We had
to explore a lot of different technologies.

One challenge was that we had to create our own custom
video conferencing solutions at very high resolution.
It had to run on multiple platforms, and in browsers
or a full screen, so we built our implementation using
Flash Communication Server. It allowed multiple forms
of communication, which was critical.

Imagine fielding phone calls, e-mails, and faxes from
multiple sources; imagine this included conflicting
information and wrong information. We had to deal with
an inundation of this type of data and then support a
cinematic context to present the information.
Cinematic is very good way of presenting complex
information.

Our architecture also had to run multiple sessions, so
we had an outer lobby and inner lobby similar to the
way an X-Box game works.

It was too expensive to try and use solutions like SQL
Server, so we developed our own server that allows
Flash developers to create sophisticated applications
through a lean protocol. We could also use it for
prototypes and proof of concepts without having to
write any server or middleware code.

Our system allowed real-time interaction to become
persistent. We were able to play back the simulation
to see how decisions were made under various
information conditions. It was also important for
every player to go into any other player's shoes and
see what's happening. We built a pessimistic model
such that the simulation is informed about every
element for every user, so we can see what is going on
with anyone.

Beyond simulation, we're looking at developing systems
to manage real crises. These could be used by the
military and government, but also by corporations. We
have to make our connectivity very flexible so that we
can route different kinds of information in multiple
ways. Of course, liability implications are a concern
when developing systems for real situations.

It is possible to use existing collaboration tools
like Netmeeting for this sort of thing, but then you
are faced with attempting to marry various different
technologies. It's better to try and do it with a
single platform. For example, a lot of existing tools
out there are perfect for the web, but perform very
poorly in a local area network.

------------------------------------------------------------
Q&A PERIOD / PANEL DISCUSSION

Q: What collaboration tools do you think are
underused?

A: Instant messaging in corporations is underused
because it's perceived as insecure-but people don't
realize that you can make it secure. Wikis are also
underutilized.

A lot of people have never heard of SharePoint.

Groove Virtual Office (www.groove.net) is a virtual
workspace [Architekture] uses to store files,
documents, whiteboards, etc. It works peer-to-peer
with others in the workspace, allowing direct
communication. I can also use my laptop to carry a
snapshot of the workspace with me on the plane, then
sync up when I land.

Q: Skype is voice over IP (www.skype.com). What do you
think about it?

A: Voice over IP is a great way to get velocity in
communications.

Q: I see barriers to adoption of collaborative
systems. What happens when companies aren't used to
using this stuff?

A: You can create "silos" of collaboration that can
then spread to the rest of the company. These
obstacles tend to break down very quickly as soon as
people are seeing what they can do.

You can do it with SharePoint.

Q: If I'm having a meeting in an internet cafe, what
can I do to collaborate?

A: It's easy to set up a peer network to exchange
information and share documents, but there isn't much
you can do safely outside your firewall. Another easy
thing you can do in the office (inside your firewall)
is set up a free SharePoint server. Since its all
browser based you don't all need to have the same
software or platform.

Q: Do you find there are cultural barriers to
acceptance? Do people's habits get in the way?

A: Yes. Unfortunately people will still use
reply-to-all e-mails even when collaborating tools are
available. Sometimes new training is required to break
these habits.

Q: How did you decide on a tool like Groove?

A: [Architekture] didn't look at any of the open
source stuff, but we did consider Macromedia Breeze
(http://www.macromedia.com/software/breeze). It was
costly, although on-demand (per minute) pricing was a
possibility. Questions you should ask yourself are:
How important is real-time collaboration (voice, IM,
etc.)? How important is security? We liked the
point-to-point encryption that Groove offers. We also
looked at some content management software that was
web-based (subscription-based) called T.O.M.
(http://www.poweredbytom.com/). It had very robust
security.

What does matter about getting people on board is
finding a project to rally around, then pick a tool
and use it for that. A great tool by itself won't
necessarily break habits.

(Audience comment) Collaboration plug-ins are
available for Outlook.

Q: I'm implementing SharePoint now. What happens when
there are too many users and too many content sites?
Won't stuff get lost?

A: Yes, you need to put in some architecture or
structure right in the beginning. [Microsoft] uses a
SharePoint portal server to aggregate sites. It's also
useful to set expiration dates on content. Various
content-management technologies can help out.

Q: I'm doing computer-aided design and wondering how
to share and update drawings. This should be a great
opportunity for collaborative designing.

A: Don't know.

(Audience comment) Try e/pop (www.wiredred.com). There
is also something called ProductView (www.ptc.com)
used by the automotive industry.

Q: Sometimes collaboration can have unintended
consequences. For example, there was a call center
that kept records of all calls and they wanted to open
up the data to everybody using SharePoint. But this
data included shorthand, editorial comments, and
names, all of which got broadcast. They didn't think
about how collaboration requires some style and
editing rules.

A: Often there needs to be a referee (or a "knowledge
officer") to watch as stuff gets exposed to the world.
It is important to watch out for consequences of
sharing certain kinds of information.

Q: What do you think will happen in the health care
industry in 5 to 10 years? Will doctors be able to
work collaboratively with patients from remote sites?

A: This is already happening to some degree, but we
would certainly need to transform the medical system
and work on setting and establishing standards. I
think the US Army is developing some of this
capability.

(Audience comment) Funding is a problem here because
doctors are not paid to collaborate; they are paid to
perform treatments.

(Audience Comment) People in India are reading your
x-rays now.

Q: What about people who are content experts getting
bombarded with instant messages?

A: A best practice [at Microsoft] is the "my site"
concept, where each expert has a website. People would
have to go to your site first to get answers, which
minimizes the e-mails and phone calls.

Q: Collaboration requires load balancing just like web
servers. Do you see people taking on roles to share
the load?

A: In a disaster recovery, you need to bring in people
based on their expertise, and you want to avoid having
single points of failure-backup people have to be
available. But controlling load is a big issue. There
is a danger to taking on roles in the medical
profession, for example, because it's tough to
transfer patient information from one physician to
another. This can result in loss of continuity.