Filtered, run by Deputy Managing Director at IDG Communications in Sydney, Australia, has made the letter from Sun to HP available to the public. Mark seems suitably impressed that Sun has done it's home work, and suitably astounded that HP hasn't.
May the blog wars continue.
Podcasting the inside of Sun Microsystems, for those on the outside. I/O Podcast
e mërkurë Tet 13, 2004
e shtunë Kor 10, 2004
Similar to our own blogs.sun.com, Microsoft have now started Microsoft Community Blogs.
"You can use the directory below to find weblogs about Microsoft technologies written by Microsoft employees. Use these blogs to get insights and opinions about using (and creating!) Microsoft technology and software."
Blogs are really starting to open up the technology industry.
e diel Qer 27, 2004
David Weinberger links to Scott Rosenberg's Salon blog about Corporate Blogs and the potential for a slower take up in other industries unlike tech. This makes Jonathan Schwartz's comment, pointed out by Jim Grisanzio, in The New York Times article by Markoff, Sun Moving to Underscore New Strategy, very interesting.
"Mr. Schwartz will also announce that he plans to begin writing his own Web log on a regular basis. Several Sun employees maintain online dairies, known as blogs, at both official and unofficial Web sites. Mr. Schwartz said he was interested in reaching a computer industry audience directly, unfiltered by reporters."
Perhaps when other executives realise that they can speak "unfiltered" they to will start blogging.
"Mr. Schwartz will also announce that he plans to begin writing his own Web log on a regular basis. Several Sun employees maintain online dairies, known as blogs, at both official and unofficial Web sites. Mr. Schwartz said he was interested in reaching a computer industry audience directly, unfiltered by reporters."
Perhaps when other executives realise that they can speak "unfiltered" they to will start blogging.
e diel Qer 20, 2004
You wouldn't be hearing this if blogs.sun.com wasn't around. Andy Tucker, Sun Distinguished Engineer, talks about his job of Open Sourcing Solaris on his blog. It's been mentioned in the press a few times, but now you're up close and personal.
e mërkurë Qer 16, 2004
I'm at a crisis at the moment with my blogs. For those that aren't aware I have a personal blog, Richard Giles blog which I've been running for about two and a half years. Over time I've also started a Photoblog, which needs updating, a blog concerned with Open Spectrum which also desperately needs updating, and my daughter's blog, Baby's First Blog, which explains why all the others need updating.
My crisis is whether I'm spread too thin, and perhaps I need to consolidate. Could having this Sun blog also be diminishing my "blog brand"?
e hënë Qer 14, 2004
In an article at Time this week, Meet Joe Blog, Grossman and Hamilton suggest that part of the reason for blogging's success is the author's bias and personality. That's absolutely true. Sick of the fence sitting media the community is out to find a source that tells it how they see it, and blogs are all about that. It's a fundamental for blogs that supplement journalism. However, that's not why Sun Blogs will make a difference, because it's not about breaking news stories. A year ago I couldn't see how corporate blogs would make a difference, I wondered if it would just supplement journalism, but today my experience shows otherwise. There are other reasons why blogs make such a difference. Two, at the very least, that will make Sun Bloggers worthwhile. Blogs turn the organisation inside out and improve internal and external communication.
Historically if someone wanted to know some information about engineering work within Sun you'd have two avenues. Reading newsgroups in the hope one of them posted there, or logging a bug. Even within Sun the later was often the best method. Typically both of these are reactive. You'll only hear from someone when they've been approached or seen an issue they can help with. With blogging though, it's all proactive. Meaning that the author has willingly given their time, energy and knowledge to post something. Again generalising, this means that they are more likely to be willing to help when contacted because they've spent the time to start the dialogue. So, why bother speak to a sales person, looking in a newsgroup, or logging a bug when you can go straight to one of the lead X engineers, for information, or mention a bug to one of the Java engineers and have it looked at straight away. Blogs mean that the inside of the company is now visibly on the outside. Turning Sun inside out.
Another great side effect of blogging is the community that it builds. A magical, invisible, bond between bloggers. My role at Sun is currently two fold. I'm a Partner Account Manager looking after a collection of partners that add significant value to our customers, and also have my own customer who I help directly. This means I'm on the front line. I joined the sales side three years ago after being a Sun Systems Engineer (SE) for four years. When you're at the front the way to build contacts in our engineering group is to have a Systems Engineer do what we call a rotation. This meant sending the SE for a few weeks to an engineering group like those in Menlo Park, and have them sit with a bunch of engineers involved in development, helping where they can. Now this is great fun. Especially in the hey day of the dot com boom where donuts were supplied every Wednesday. However, as a lowly sales rep it's not that easy to tap into these amazing resources other than by working with System Engineers who know the right people. Until now.
I should mention at this time that I live at the most isolated city on the planet, in the most isolated country in the world, far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy. This means two things. It's a wonderful place to live because it's all so relaxed and laid back, but it's hard to communicate with the rest of the world because of the differences in time and space with the rest of the 6.3 billion people on the planet. That makes me an expert on the difficulties in remote communication.
Why does this matter? Well working for a global company that does most of it's engineering in the other hemisphere, it's tough to get answers to some of the more curly technical questions, or help partners get access to resources that help their cause. However, given I blog, I've recently been able to call on a couple of Sun's high profile bloggers for help. I've never met either of these guys face to face, but have spoken through email and mail groups on several occasions. Now apart from the fact that these guys are down to earth and very approachable, I wouldn't have known who to ask for help without having seen their blogs, and because of the community it has built they've been comfortable enough to help me out. It's just like I've spent a few weeks on rotation sitting by their side building a network. So now from my desk I've teed up a meeting for a local partner with our JXTA team in the U.S. and we're on the road to fixing a bug in Star Office that could mean it's adopted by a local end user. Both made much easier because of the Sun blogger community.
So blogging at Sun has already started to help the company two fold. By turning the company inside out it means that customers have the ability to tap into proactive, open people with a wealth of knowledge and enough influence to make serious change. Internally it contracts time and space so that communication travels more quickly and easily allowing us to help each other more effectively. It makes a large global organisation seem like a small local group in the next room, and builds a community similar to those built by conversation at a water cooler. Maybe it's time to change our slogan. The network is the people.
Historically if someone wanted to know some information about engineering work within Sun you'd have two avenues. Reading newsgroups in the hope one of them posted there, or logging a bug. Even within Sun the later was often the best method. Typically both of these are reactive. You'll only hear from someone when they've been approached or seen an issue they can help with. With blogging though, it's all proactive. Meaning that the author has willingly given their time, energy and knowledge to post something. Again generalising, this means that they are more likely to be willing to help when contacted because they've spent the time to start the dialogue. So, why bother speak to a sales person, looking in a newsgroup, or logging a bug when you can go straight to one of the lead X engineers, for information, or mention a bug to one of the Java engineers and have it looked at straight away. Blogs mean that the inside of the company is now visibly on the outside. Turning Sun inside out.
Another great side effect of blogging is the community that it builds. A magical, invisible, bond between bloggers. My role at Sun is currently two fold. I'm a Partner Account Manager looking after a collection of partners that add significant value to our customers, and also have my own customer who I help directly. This means I'm on the front line. I joined the sales side three years ago after being a Sun Systems Engineer (SE) for four years. When you're at the front the way to build contacts in our engineering group is to have a Systems Engineer do what we call a rotation. This meant sending the SE for a few weeks to an engineering group like those in Menlo Park, and have them sit with a bunch of engineers involved in development, helping where they can. Now this is great fun. Especially in the hey day of the dot com boom where donuts were supplied every Wednesday. However, as a lowly sales rep it's not that easy to tap into these amazing resources other than by working with System Engineers who know the right people. Until now.
I should mention at this time that I live at the most isolated city on the planet, in the most isolated country in the world, far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy. This means two things. It's a wonderful place to live because it's all so relaxed and laid back, but it's hard to communicate with the rest of the world because of the differences in time and space with the rest of the 6.3 billion people on the planet. That makes me an expert on the difficulties in remote communication.
Why does this matter? Well working for a global company that does most of it's engineering in the other hemisphere, it's tough to get answers to some of the more curly technical questions, or help partners get access to resources that help their cause. However, given I blog, I've recently been able to call on a couple of Sun's high profile bloggers for help. I've never met either of these guys face to face, but have spoken through email and mail groups on several occasions. Now apart from the fact that these guys are down to earth and very approachable, I wouldn't have known who to ask for help without having seen their blogs, and because of the community it has built they've been comfortable enough to help me out. It's just like I've spent a few weeks on rotation sitting by their side building a network. So now from my desk I've teed up a meeting for a local partner with our JXTA team in the U.S. and we're on the road to fixing a bug in Star Office that could mean it's adopted by a local end user. Both made much easier because of the Sun blogger community.
So blogging at Sun has already started to help the company two fold. By turning the company inside out it means that customers have the ability to tap into proactive, open people with a wealth of knowledge and enough influence to make serious change. Internally it contracts time and space so that communication travels more quickly and easily allowing us to help each other more effectively. It makes a large global organisation seem like a small local group in the next room, and builds a community similar to those built by conversation at a water cooler. Maybe it's time to change our slogan. The network is the people.
e diel Qer 06, 2004
David Weinberger, author of Small Pieces Loosely Joined and co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual, would be proud. Today blogs.sun.com will be officially announced (amongst a collection of unofficial announcements here, here, here and here).
The timing couldn't be more relevant. What better way to celebrate a new dynamic time at Sun than by featuring a new model of grass roots communication like blogs. I believe that the last few months have demonstrated a new way of thinking at Sun, quicker and fresher than the last five years, and blogs are by far the best way to communicate that to the community. Each employee now has the ability to become a personal conduit for the company to our customers.
Sun is changing, and not just from a product perspective. The whole culture is open to a new way of thinking. Jonathan Schwartz may say some things that I regret occasionally, but his openness and lateral thinking is quickly embedding itself throughout the organisation. I guess that's why he's one of Time Magazine's People to Watch in International Business.
It's going to be interesting watching all these new changes happen from an inside out perspective on blogs.sun.com. I've been blogging for a couple of years now at my personal blog (here), and have been watching the growth of blogs with interest. At times I wondered just how blogs might change business, not that I think it will be dramatic, but I'm starting to think it might be a new type of guerilla communication. Just what Weinberger discussed in his book. Funnily enough, both the book and blogs.sun.com have something to do with Tim Bray!
The timing couldn't be more relevant. What better way to celebrate a new dynamic time at Sun than by featuring a new model of grass roots communication like blogs. I believe that the last few months have demonstrated a new way of thinking at Sun, quicker and fresher than the last five years, and blogs are by far the best way to communicate that to the community. Each employee now has the ability to become a personal conduit for the company to our customers.
Sun is changing, and not just from a product perspective. The whole culture is open to a new way of thinking. Jonathan Schwartz may say some things that I regret occasionally, but his openness and lateral thinking is quickly embedding itself throughout the organisation. I guess that's why he's one of Time Magazine's People to Watch in International Business.
It's going to be interesting watching all these new changes happen from an inside out perspective on blogs.sun.com. I've been blogging for a couple of years now at my personal blog (here), and have been watching the growth of blogs with interest. At times I wondered just how blogs might change business, not that I think it will be dramatic, but I'm starting to think it might be a new type of guerilla communication. Just what Weinberger discussed in his book. Funnily enough, both the book and blogs.sun.com have something to do with Tim Bray!
