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Tags: images, india, workstreamr

Quoted from Umair Haque, Bubblegeneration

Yes, big business sucks. We all know it. But the question is: what does our feeling really mean? Why do we feel that?

Because the DNA of the industrial era firm is sucking the life out of the economy. Once upon a time, industrial era firms were engines of value creation. Today, they’re prisons, where trauma is institutionalized into everyone who comes into contact with them.

That feeling - like a dull toothache - is a massively powerful heuristic that something is deeply wrong; wrong with McJobs; wrong with $100m bonuses for value destruction; wrong with the evisceration of variety, choice, and happiness; wrong with the long slow death of culture and community; wrong with the sinking intuition that like you’ve signed away your life when you walk into that cube, all for a few bucks and free lattes.

So who reinvents the firm? We do.

The power of 2.0 isn’t minigames and ad nets: it’s the new DNA it brings to the table.

Tags: bubblegeneration, corporations, dna, harvard, Quotes, umair haque, workstreamr

via Adam Carson

Tags: adam carson, flickr, questions, stowe boyd, twitter, workstreamr

By Dinesh, Engineer

The past week (or rather 2 weeks ) was tedious. Work was at its best not letting any time for the poor worker. Stowe Boyd was here in Delhi, were he talked about his visions and ideas for his new baby ‘Workstreamr’. To say the least I was taken aback by his eloquence. He was stern with what he wanted but was open to new ideas as well. His short (or rather long) speeches he gave were absolutely great. Of all the people I have heard speaking, he attracts and keeps his listeners interested.

He talked about the concepts that he wanted, his visions on how the product would look like and the concerns he had. He was one of those people who would sell a dime for a dollar. Persuasive is the word if the above analogy was crap. We had a great time with Ben and Sam when we zig zag -ed through those Noida Highways, without even caring the signal lights. Ben and Sam better get used to those as they are going to be here for some time now!

My role has slightly shifted from a ROR programmer to an HTML programmer (if that could be categorized as programming). Standardizing the actual interface. I have always liked JavaScript but I feel I would have more time off that those other guys now. The problem that I faced, and all those HTML guys would agree to this, is not to make HTML with great style sheets but to make them work with the ever crappy Internet Explorer. I can’t figure out why IE has become the most used browser. Its as Dracula says ‘You suck more than I do !!’.

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Tags: Engineering, html, IE, india, rails, ror, stowe boyd, workstreamr

By Sam Huleatt, CEO

Last month the Wall Street Journal compiled a list of seven common activities technology is helping to transform. Notably absent was ‘how we work.’

My last post discussed why I feel the phrase Enterprise 2.0 is not the best one to represent the next generation of enterprise software. I arrive at this conclusion based in the fact that work culture is fundamentally changing. As a result of these changes, the next wave of software innovations cannot simply be ‘additions’ to already existing architectures. Maybe this would be fine if we were in a maturing industry; but we are not. Thus, our next software innovations must utilize new architectures that are specifically designed to address our new era. Likewise, the terminology we use to define new software should reflect such changes.

So what exactly is going on?

One of the biggest changes I see (and that Stowe loves to talk about) is a movement away from the notion of hierarchical ‘enterprises.’ There is a shift from large corporate-shells to individual ‘enterprising’ individuals. Thanks to technology and globalization, power is shifting away from large corporate structures and returning to individuals. More and more, it’s about niche specializations, not generalists. We see this manifest itself in an increasing number of freelancers and consultants. In the United States alone there are 42 million independent workers; 30% of the entire labor force. We are now in a project economy where the creative class is flourishing thanks in large part to lowered barriers to entrepreneurship brought about by advances in technology and the internet.

Next, people are coming to understand that work is improved when it is ‘social.’ We all know the role of swarm theory in nature. Swarm theory comes into play with power participation laws, collective intelligence and wisdom of the crowds. The social also feeds entrepreneurship and innovation. Just this week the New York Times suggested that freelancers excel when in a social environment. On top of this, there is also a blurring of work/life boundaries for young workers. While millenials expect longer hours they also expect social interactions at work — and the tools to allow them.

Mike Gotta of Collaborative Thinking sums it all up perfectly:

The “social enterprise” (e.g., Enterprise 2.0), reflects a desire to transform organizations governed by industrial-age management practices. Establishing a more participatory culture across internal and external stakeholders is essential for enabling the level of workforce agility and resiliency necessary for organizations to continuously innovate and grow.

Closely related to the ideas of ‘enterprising individuals’ and the ‘social’ is the role of presence. While people may be working collaboratively and with specialists, it’s often not face-to-face. Technology has empowered us to be able to find and hire the best talent – no matter where in the world it exists. Collaboration is now geographically dispersed. Outsourcing and offshoring is increasingly common, and not necessarily related to cost-savings. Similarly, millenials are demanding the ability to work from home, allowing for better flexibility and work/life balance. These changes must all be reflected in new enterprise software, especially as the mindset shifts away from the necessity of physical spaces and presence.

Finally, I think there is a healthy shift away from talking about ‘productivity increases’ and instead talking about ‘quality increases.’ ROI is obviously important, but as younger people work longer hours and more commonly have niche specialties, I believe they also take more pride in what they do. It’s not about getting it done faster; it’s about getting it done better.

While there are undoubtedly more changes occurring (multi tasking for example), these are some of the most significant I recognize and which I believe Workstreamr will begin to address.

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Tags: collaboration, millenials, multi tasking, offshoring, roi, sam huleatt, stowe boyd, workstreamr

By Sam Huleatt, CEO

Apologies for the lack of posts over the past 15 days, but internet is somewhat unreliable in India and the Middle East and I have been swamped with issues more pressing than blog posts (I know, I know).

After returning from India last night I was greeted by a barrage of unanswered emails, including several concerning a post on /Message.

So the cat is out of the bag – Workstreamr is the name of the ‘mystery’ project that Ben, Stowe and I have been working on since last summer. We have spent a tremendous amount of time and energy into the conceptualization of what will hopefully be a revolutionary new platform focused on doing everyone’s favorite activity: work!

In the coming weeks I will begin to reveal more about Workstreamr’s architecture and more importantly — our mission and approach. Nothing about Workstreamr is conventional and that’s the way we like it.

Big things to come…

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Tags: /message, architecture, india, sam huleatt, workstreamr

By Stowe Boyd, Lead Designer

I was in New Delhi for almost a week, and it was — on one level — an assault on the senses. The zig-zag driving, with endless honking of horns, and a streaming chaos of bikes, pedicabs, motorscooters, cars, trucks, and semi-immobile sacred cows makes for a harrowing experience.

But I wasn’t visiting Delhi for a vacation: I was there with my partners in Workstreamr, Ben Schippers and Sam Huleatt, to kick off the engineering development on the product, which will be the first real workstreaming application. We are working with Global Logic’s newly formed Version 1.0 group, and the progress we are making is extraordinary. We have been working with Saumitri Chaudhury of Global Logic for several months on the conceptual design, and he has become an invaluable partner, especially to me, in my role as designer. Workstreamr is truly my baby, but the Global Logic folks are doing a great job of playing midwife. An amazing bunch, and the level of their expertise will be obvious when we roll out the beta in a few months. They showed me the first working demo on the first day of our meetings: wow. It took my breath away.

We also overlapped with Global Logic’s first annual Partner’s Conference, where I met several dozen partners and the executives from Global Logic.

Here’s Peter Harrison, the CEO, who I have known over five years. I first worked with Global Logic — then known as Indus Logic — in 2001, when the company was only 16 employees: it is now almost 3000. Peter announced raising another venture round of $30M from a groups of firms, including Sequoia and Draper Atlantic. Lots of growth ahead.

While New Delhi challenged me in very fundamental ways, there is a dynamic explosive feeling there. I can understand why Peter said to me at the party that he considered moving to New Delhi, to be right there in the center of that economic revolution.

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Tags: ben schippers, globallogic, india, sam huleatt, stowe boyd, workstreaming, workstreamr