Lauren Cooney's Blog

I need some design help! Any takers? Rewards offered!

I've decided that I need to get a cool new blog now that I'm at Microsoft and I hang out with all these Silverlight and Expression designer folks. Not only that, every time I pull up my blog, it makes me not want to blog because of how truly drab it seems... and I think it needs a little pick me up, especially given all the news I'm going to be talking about over the next few months (very, very exciting stuff, I promise you all)!

Would anyone want to take a stab at helping to design a cool new blog for me? I'm sure I could figure out an Amazon gift card or something in exchange... and of course, your work will get properly promoted all over this blog as well as my wonderful Twitter account (laurencooney).

So, any takers? Please feel free to ping me directly too - lcooney@microsoft.com. I am open to anything. :) Oh, and by the way, it's not a prerequisite to build it with MSFT technologies. Any cool design ideas will do.

Thanks! /LC

Thinking Ecosystem

Although I'm known as a "developer community" person, I've been spending my time focused more on the ecosystem piece as of recently. I believe the ecosystem thought is larger than the community thought, but I'll tackle that one later...

The ecosystem is essentially the whole of all the components in a specific environment, with strong focus on how they relate to and interact with one another. As my team moves forward to launch a new initiative at Microsoft, we have to consider the ecosystem carefully: the potential and current users/customers, the community, partners and potential partners, developers (inside and outside the company), product management and field evangelists. All of these are key ecosystem players that need to be joined together when creating a new strategy, product, or technology that will be brought to market.

When you're looking at building a successful product/technology ecosystem (note I don't say company here), you're looking at all these players (and sometimes more) that need to work together. And the key here is to recognize that it's not just your product/technology and your company that you really want to be successful, mostly, it's your user or your customer. So in order to create this ecosystem, it's absolutely essential that you need to involve the customer/user more in the product development and testing phase.

Google is a company that does this very well. Very early on in development, these products are put out to the market in beta format for the community to test and check out. If they fail, they don't move forward with the product. If they succeed, the community not only shows its love for the product by downloading and using it, it also helps Google by finding and reporting bugs, and additionally the users champion the product/technology to the extended community. Essentially, the ecosystem provides Google with not only the feedback they need, but some critical testing and product promotion as well - and the Google ecosystem provides a smooth working process for how products should be developed for the market. I can't leave the scalable infrastructure part out either, but that will be discussed in a later post.

I am a huge supporter of this model. Next week I am in San Francisco for an offsite to discuss our "NextWeb"* strategy (you'll hear more about this as we close on specifics) but this is something I am going to recommend that we seriously consider as we move forward with this plan.

Just some thoughts as I move into next week. You'll get a few more of these random postings since I'm still learning the ropes over here, but I want to make sure that you guys know what I'm working on so I can get feedback from you on what we should be considering and what we can do better.

/LC

*"NextWeb" is a combination of different technologies, languages and products from Microsoft and the community at large, such as AJAX, LIVE, Silverlight, LINQ, ASP.NET, PHP, Ruby, Web and Enterprise 2.0, etc. (Note this is my definition, not Microsoft's).

The scoop on my new gig at Microsoft... and why I made the leap

Last weekend I packed up my house in SF, shipped my cats (who almost were lost, but that's another story for another day), filled a few suitcases full of clothes, and hopped a plane to Seattle! It's been an exciting adventure so far, full of new faces at Microsoft, and lots of new and fun challenges to face.

For those of you who are interested, I'm now working in the Application Platform and Developer Division at Microsoft, running the Web Platform team. My team (who I'll snap pictures of this week and introduce you to) is responsible for Internet Explorer and ASP.NET product management, Web 2.0, Web Influencer engagement, developer Open Source efforts, and standards engagement. It's an amazingly smart team with lots of enthusiasm, and it's just great to be working with people who truly have a passion for the community, and just "get it." It's been awhile since I've been in an environment where folks truly care about the people that use their software, and it just rocks. And, not being on a team that looks at revenue for a success metric is also amazing.

When I chose to go to Microsoft, there were a few key things that helped convince me to make the jump:

(1) When I was interviewing, I made it very clear that I care about the community first, and the company second. Every single person I talked to (from VPs like Dan'l Lewin and GMs like Sheila Gulati, right down to the business manager in the office, I kid you not) understood that this was critical to success. And that while other divisions might care about revenues or competition, our key job is ensuring that developers are successful, regardless of the circumstances or products they are developing on. And thus far, I've seen that message delivered to our team. This is something that has always been of number one importance to me, and I'm committed to keeping our teams focused on this moving forward.

(2) The acceptance of the vision of Microsoft as a more open company was crystal clear as something that has to be done both internally and externally at Microsoft. It's always been a principle at Microsoft to give transparency to what we do, but now, we're fully committed to being a more open company (as can be seen here). I sat down with Sam Ramji, Robert Duffner, and Brian Goldfarb just this week (Sam who I worked with at BEA, and Robert who I worked with at both BEA and IBM; Brian's my new boss) and we have some good ideas of where we need to go and what we need to do to get this done. Will this happen overnight? No. But the shift is happening, and I'm really excited about what we can do. There's so much opportunity here, it's just incredible. And people are committed to making it happen, and to see the change in that thought process is terrific. Please do send me thoughts and ideas, as always (lacooney@microsoft.com).

(3) Putting the fun back into the job. I've never seen a group of people that have more fun with their jobs than I have at Microsoft. There are lots of really bright folks over here, and no lack of great ideas flying around. This is one of the most important things I factor in when making a job leap. My first day, we actually had a team building activity (Whirly-ball) where I got to know folks from all over our division. The following day, we had a team offsite where I got the low-down on all of our teams' activities and what we're planning for the next year. And let me tell you - the level of enthusiasm throughout this offsite was great. And it's so nice to be back in an environment where this happens - all the time.

(4) Free drinks and coffee (wait, kidding, kidding). That's just a nice to have. :)

I'm excited and I can't wait to see what the coming year will bring. A lot's going to happen, and I hope that I can use my experience working with the Java, PHP, and OS Dev communities to help Microsoft build a better, honest, relationship with it's "non-traditional" developer base. But to do that, I do need to hear from you, so keep the feedback coming.

And get ready for an exciting year! /LC

PS: And to all you nay-sayers who said the weather would be awful in Seattle, it's been pretty damn nice out lately! I'm kind of glad the rental car they gave me was a convertible (my choice was either that, or a minivan... yeah).

New Changes, New Places, New Faces

So, as some of you may have heard, today is my last day at IBM. It's an AMAZING company, and I can't say enough about the fabulous, bright, driven, and super smart people I have worked with there over the past 2 1/2 years. Working with Anant Jhingran (my manager, and Info Mgmt CTO) and the folks on my team, the Emerging Tech team (David Boloker, I still love your skater sneakers, they beat Rod's cowboy boots out any day), and all the other groups has been truly one of the best work and learning experiences in my professional career. I hope to be working with these guys going forward as well.

We have a great product that will launch soon (IBM Mashup Center - InfoSphere MashupHub is the piece that is near and dear to me) and expect news on that to still be seen here. I have to say, from my (now independent) perspective, it's the most technically solid product out there for enterprise mashups. And I have loved every second driving that and Info 2.0.

But, as opportunities come up, people have to move on. In a few weeks I'll be making the move to Seattle (yikes!) and starting at Microsoft. There I'll be running a team that focuses on web strategy and some other critical elements of community and software development. I am super excited to be helping Microsoft add to their already vibrant developer community, adding in some more open community aspects (with products to match, I hope!), and to be working with a kick-ass team. I'll have more to say on my role specifically in a later post, but stay tuned here for more information.

You guys can all reach me at laurencooney@gmail.com - my computer access will be spotty since I have to turn in my laptop soon, but I'll do my best on twitter, FB, Brightkite, Dopplr (ha! and the list could go on!) to keep you updated.

Get ready for some fun stuff guys, this is going to be an awesome ride! /LC

TweetClouds, Twubble, & a FB/Twitter App

For any twitter folks out there, here are a few links that are pretty cool.

(1) TweetCloud: This creates a cloud of all your twitters - See HERE for mine.

(2) Bob Lee (better known as Crazy Bob) from Google created Twubble, an app that can help you find more folks you may know on Twitter based on your friends. I am pretty sure it maps off of Google's Social Graph, which is pretty neat.

What I'd like to see? An app that utilizes the Open APIs that Facebook and Twitter have so that I can figure out which of my 500 FB friends use Twitter. Anyone interested in building this for Web 2.0 Expo? If so, I'll buy you a beer next week. If you use Social Graph to build it too, that would be pretty neat... is it possible? /LC

Be a part of our Web 2.0 Expo Talk - you ask, we'll answer. Anything. Yep, Really.

I'm moderating a discussion (debate!) between Stephen O'Grady and Anant Jhingran at Web 2.0 Expo next Thursday, April 24th, titled, "Creativity v. Control: The Debate Continues - Can Enterprises Have Both?"

Background here: Anant thinks that enterprise customers need more control in their Web 2.0 products (which I too, have witnessed w/ customer visits) and Steve believes that more focus needs to be on the creativity that each individual brings to the enterprise through new Web 2.0 style tools, and that the benefits really lies here (which I also am a firm believer of). That said, I'm not giving justice to either stance w. this, so ck out the links below for more detail.

Anant's stand is here.

Steve's is here.

I evidently get to hold the gavel (or the mic) for this debate (which is usually a show in itself, pls laugh at my jokes, but forewarning, I can be pretty damn sarcastic) but before I create my questions, I wanted to ask you guys - what are the tough questions you want to ask? Anything goes here, so let me know - how does this work in your company? Do you think it should be more focused on the creativity new tools have brought to the table, or control that IT wants over this data? Will this affect how data is freed up to be used in mashup and situational apps? If you're a CIO or IT leader, what is your stance on this?

Here's a quick session abstract:

Creativity is at the heart of Web 2.0, and has been the key factor in growing this phenomenon on the Web and throughout the enterprise for the past four years. With enterprise organizations adopting Web 2.0 (coined Enterprise 2.0), there is a new level of “control” that customers and users may want to include in their applications, while preserving the creativity of the application users and creators. But the question remains: is control stifling creativity? Will Enterprise 2.0 succeed if employees are forced to comply with certain rules and regulations of the enterprise? Who wins here, and is it possible for both to live within the enterprise ecosystem?

This topic will be presented by Anant Jhingran, CTO of Information Management at IBM, and Stephen O’Grady, a top industry analyst with Redmonk. Topics include specific enterprise and customer scenarios, examples of emerging creativity with Enterprise 2.0, and views on specific ideas around control with Web 2.0 in the enterprise. Also included in this discussion will be security, governance, and other key issues that are related to this debate. The audience will be asked to voice their opinions on this topics at the end of the presentation.

/LC

IBM Mashup Center: Insider Details Revealed... (shhh)

Yes, I know you can't download IBM Mashup Center yet, but you will be able to very soon, I promise. I've been heads-down working with our awesome dev teams getting this ready for beta, but unfortunately, we're just not ready for a public beta _quite_ yet. So, here's a deck that I pulled together that I just got clearance to blog about today that reveals some additional details of Mashup Center, Lotus Mashups, and InfoSphere MashupHub -

Yesterday we formally announced "IBM Mashup Center," an end-to-end solution for organizations looking to Web 2.0-enable their existing infrastructure as well as build mashups and situational apps for internal and external use. The key here is that the product is actually simple enough for business users to utilize... (I, for example, have built a few "HelloWorld" apps in my day, and I can use the transformation capabilities, which is probably the most difficult - if you want to call it that - feature).

Here's a brief deck that overviews IBM Mashup Center (with some details in here that weren't revealed in yesterday's PR or the IMPACT presentation) for you guys to check out. Specifically, this digs into a lot of the features that InfoSphere MashupHub has - like transformation capabilities, connectors to existing systems, catalog features, etc. It also digs a bit into Lotus Mashups, which is another key product we partnered with to create Mashup Center.

If you recall from my previous posts, MashupHub is not only built with an APP based open API structure, but it was also built with the idea that not only mashups could consume the information created in the Hub, but things like mobile devices, other apps, etc can consume this information as well. More on that later...

With no further ado, here's the deck. Questions? Find me on Twitter or ping me direct.

| View | Upload your own

I love it when people "Get it." Mike Ferguson, you are my new hero.

I love that feeling, when you are talking to someone and the light bulb finally goes on. Even if it's something you have been talking about and feel like no one gets, and then finally, BAM. You literally can see it happen.

Today was one of those days. We've been talking about MashupHub (officially it's IBM InfoSphere MashupHub now, but we'll forgo the corporate garb here) for awhile and its capabilities, but to be honest we've really been limiting its capabilities to what it will be able to do with Lotus Mashups and a few other products out there - which is awesome stuff, don't get me wrong. But we've got additional plans, right? We do have plans to release a standalone MashupHub (can't comment on that date yet, sorry). And man, Mike Ferguson just nailed them today. He gets it, and I LOVE IT.

Mike has been writing an ongoing article I've been following on mashup technologies, titled, "Web 2.0 and Business Intelligence: How do they fit together?" Now, I've never met Mike (I don't think...) and I opened my reader today to see his article, focusing on mashup products, but specifically calling out MashupHub, and the product formerly known as QEDWiki (these capabilities will be available in Lotus Mashups VERY soon).

Mike writes about MashupHub capabilities here, and says (I have highlighted the important parts):

This server [MashupHub]takes data feeds and mashes them together to provide richer information. Note here that mashups separate the mashing of data from the presentation of data. Therefore, the data can be presented using a variety of mechanisms once it has been mashed.... Various output formats can be rendered by a mashup server (e.g., RSS, ATOM or even XML, which can be passed to browser side JavaScript and XSLT). I see no reason why this output could not be made available to portals, Office applications (e.g., Microsoft Outlook 2007 RSS feeds), wikis and other applications. Therefore, this means that business intelligence can be combined with other information without any programming and made available on-demand to offer up even more valuable information.

There are a few key points here that Mike hits on that we've been thinking a lot about:

(1) The separation of the mashing of data and the presentation of the mashed data, which relates to how the information can be output.

(2) The different applications and devices that can consume this mashed data.

(3) Information can be combined together without any programming and made available on-demand to offer up even more valuable information.

(4) Also relevant here is our Open API strategy, which David Boloker and I spoke about in March.

Below is the diagram and an excerpt from Mike's article, but be sure to read it as well. It's a terrific read, end to end, but kudos to you Mike. You made my day. /LC

_________________________________________________________________________________________

The other way to create mashups is the buy option (i.e., to buy a mashup server from vendors like Kapow and IBM). Other mashup editors include Microsoft PopFly, Yahoo Pipes and Google Mashup Editor. Also, EII vendors such as Denodo are also pushing into this space. Figure 3 shows an example of the IBM Mashup Hub. This server takes data feeds and mashes them together to provide richer information. Note here that mashups separate the mashing of data from the presentation of data. Therefore, the data can be presented using a variety of mechanisms once it has been mashed. In the case of the IBM Mashup Server shown in Figure 3, the data is presented to the user using a presentation component called QEDWiki. When I first looked at this product all I could think about was that it looked similar to ETL workflows. Essentially, data such as RSS feeds and XML data from remote web services is taken in by the mashup server, any necessary filters applied, and the ‘mashed’ output made available for presentation.

 

Various output formats can be rendered by a mashup server (e.g., RSS, ATOM or even XML, which can be passed to browser side JavaScript and XSLT). I see no reason why this output could not be made available to portals, Office applications (e.g., Microsoft Outlook 2007 RSS feeds), wikis and other applications. Therefore, this means that business intelligence can be combined with other information without any programming and made available on-demand to offer up even more valuable information.

(http://www.b-eye-network.com/view/7168)

Why Should I Twitter? Clue me in!

I signed up for Twitter quite awhile ago (to grab the user name "laurencooney") but I rarely use it. Recently I've had a lot of people (well, about 20) add me as someone they are following on Twitter. I'm not quite sure why, but I'm willing to take a stab at Twittering if someone can give me some good reasons to why I should use it... I get the part about following conversations, or asking questions that you need answered at that moment, and it *seems* like it might be convenient...

Can someone clue me in? Am I missing something here? I feel like the last person invited to the biggest party of the year... help! :) /LC

You Know You've Been Traveling Too Much When...

.... you roll out of bed in the morning, thinking you're late, and grumbling about how the hotel operator forgot to give you your wake-up call... only to realize that you're in your own bed, in your own house, oh, and it's a different time zone - you're up 3 hours too early. And the worst part? There's no room service waffles/coffee on the way.

I got back from NYC late last night, mainly due to delays in flights from high winds, and sore from flying coach (yes, my whole management team does Coach travel, FYI - we save money!).

This weekend I'm working on reworking our Info 2.0 website - hopefully we'll have it refreshed by next Friday. We're getting closer to announcements (yay!) so time to get this rolling.

Hope you all have a great weekend... /LC