Socialcast Embraces Email … Socialcast integrated email into its enterprise social media platform, to allow users to interact with Socialcast via email. “Socialcast’s new email integration feature allows users to post news messages, questions, and ideas to Socialcast by emailing them to share@socialcast.com. The system will also pick up file attachments, tags and links, which will be displayed inside their Socialcast community. This feature allows employees to use email as a vehicle for transporting important information into a tool more adept at fostering collaboration and rapid communication. The result is fewer carbon copy and reply-all emails as well as a growing knowledge hub created from surfacing information to a broader audience and archiving it for future reference.” More

HyperOffice White Paper … HyperOffice released a new white paper, entitled “From Email Bankruptcy to Business Productivity”. It talks about how there are new and better ways to collaborate, using online collaboration tools. “Most outside parties will still communicate with you using email. But the deluge of mails created by internal collaboration will be a factor controllable by you. Online collaboration software is clearly the right answer. Online collaboration will also give you the option of drawing your partners and customers inside your collaborative loop. The result will be increased overall productivity, better relationships and a reduced urge to file for email bankruptcy.” More

Microsoft and HP Against Cisco … Microsoft and HP announced a strategic partnership, for offering Microsoft’s communication software with HP gear. “The partnership can be read as a high-powered endorsements of Microsoft’s communications technology as well as a stab at Cisco, which is pushing its own unified communications products. Cisco has its eye on the collaboration market, which it believes will be worth $34 billion in the coming years. Google is also pushing into this space with its Google Apps and other enterprise efforts. But Microsoft isn’t going to sit still while interlopers try to infringe on its business. And with Cisco releasing its own line of servers, HP’s decision to buddy up with Microsoft makes sense.” More

Cisco Collaboration in Motion … Cisco announced Collaboration in Motion, a new initiative to support mobile workers. “Collaboration in Motion will bring together a variety of products from Cisco’s network portfolio. The mix includes Cisco’s WebEx virtual meeting tool, its Unified Communications platform, the Cisco Unified Wireless Network, and Cisco Advanced Services for technical support. The company hopes the new project will bridge the gap between the wired, wireless, and cellular worlds, allowing mobile employees to work more seamlessly. With Collaboration in Motion, Cisco says its strategy is to focus on new tools and technologies in several key areas. As part of its Workspace Experience, the company will develop network applications and software for the growing number of portable mobile devices. Cisco recently unveiled an iPhone-based version of its WebEx Meeting Center application.” More

Two Weeks with MySite … Brett shares his lessons from two weeks with My Site at work: (1) People do not understand the differences between the My Home and My Profile tabs, (2) The out-of-the-box site definition for My Sites is inadequate for most people, (3) It is not helpful to market MySites as internal Facebook, (4) People do not understand the idea of My Site sub-sites, (5) It’s okay if most people never leverage My Sites, and (6) Most people are not going to leverage training and support resources. “In summary, we should focus on getting people familiar with using the profile page well. We can allow people to create a My Site, if they want. However, we should provide them with a My Home page that is instantly useful and that doesn’t require training. Microsoft tells us that only 8% of their employees use My Sites extensively. Most of their employees utilize Team Sites far more than My Sites. Now that we’ve started our own pilot, the reasons for this are clear.” More

Other Items
– Mark puts in a vote of confidence for DimDim, a web conferencing tool.
– Someone has their hands on an early release of Office 2010.
– The three C’s that can kill innovation: bad culture, bad communication, and bad collaboration.
– New bag from Waterfield Designs, the Muzetto.