The ten stages of learning Groove

We are all afraid when approaching some new technology. Learning Groove is no different

1. I am happy with what I use today (eg E-mail) and should not look elsewhere
2. Ouch that hurts, but everyone else is suffering with E-mail and there probably is nothing better and I don't have time to look
3. Ouch that hurts, hmm...
4. Ouch that really hurts, perhaps there is another way
5. Ok, perhaps I'll have a look at Groove
6. What, that looks complicated, don't understand that
7. Oh, that was easy and cool
8. Ouch, that Groove hurts, are you sure this is worth it?
9. Ouch that really hurt, but some bits aren't bad at all
10. Now I've got it. I am not going back. There is pain in the new system but I can do so much more. I am not going back.

Exposure of pain points, is it good or bad?

In the UK we are justifyably proud of Ellen MacArthur for sailing round the world faster than anyone else. One thing that is part of her character is exposing that she is human, that she is fallable. Translate that into an organisation and what do you get? Do the same with society, nationhood...

Traditionally society, companies and individuals hide their problems. My parents in common with their generation do not talk about ailments, even in front of family. But that is changing.

Right or wrong the advent of blogs permit people to openly express to the world their opinion on the life, unverse et al with termedous ease. Sometimes as employees they may overstep the bounds of "company regulations", possibly as ex-employees they feel more "freedom" and if the separation was not mutually happy (is it ever?) then perhaps they do that with a tinge of angst.

Being an entrepreneur is not easy. In building PopG, one rule I have kept to my heart is "there are no rules." Therefore I have defined PopG as a new company, a company with new mores, my mores. Readers of my blog, website, forums should get a sense of touching something real, something tangible. In this virtual world we co-habit we are alive, and we should be proud of it.

and in the beginning...

"While Groove is starting with Windows, the company can run the software on Linux and has plans to extend Groove to handheld devices. Groove is also looking closely at Apple Computer's Mac OS X and could in the future release a version of the software for that operating system. Mac OS X is in beta testing, with a release scheduled for early next year. " Cnet, 2000 http://news.com.com/2100-1001-247492.html?legacy=cnet

"PopG based Groove is seen as a liberating technology"

That is how www.info-share.org see things from Sri Lanka as they look back at the early days of post-Tsunami. If you want to read the full report on the technologies used read http://denver.popg.net/pub/popg_docs/IS%20and%20Tsunami.pdf which, looking forward emphasises the values of mobile technologies such as phones in such an aftermath.

Sorting out a real dogs dinner

It seems to me that over time increasingly Groove has been plagued with installation problems. I used to be of the opinion that this was Groove's fault: not any longer. Right now I believe that installing software on Windows is becoming very complex and indeed so complex that it is in danger of failing if even the smallest thing is wrong..

In common with many other software providers Groove uses the widely used, InstallShield. In trying to analyse Groove's installation problems I came across a relevant InstallShield patch page. And I am amazed. I was expecting something like "if there is a problem, uninstall and re-install". Of course this is InstallShield, and given the nature of its task, I might expect to see something out of the ordinary. Nothing has prepared me for this.

The page http://consumer.installshield.com/kb.asp?id=Q108322 has so many different ways of "fixing" InstallShield depending on this that and the other that I can only draw the conclusion that something else is wrong. Something is wrong with the principles of how all this works.

If resolving installation problems with InstallShield is difficult then what on earth is a complex application like Groove and its user community going to do downstream... Suffer is my only conclusion, and suffer they do.

I have been through so many installation faults and issues on behalf of Groove users, on behalf of PopG. I have worked with Groove support staff, and as yet no magic fomula has ever appeared to solve the problem. And as I say I used to think it was Groove's fault. This is not a short term problem: this has been around for several years. And as I say, I think it is getting worse. Perhaps it is now time to ask - is there another installer?

A Duck-billed Platliccation?

Right from day one the Groove lexicon was challenged around what it delivered, what it was and what it was perceived to be. Terms such as operating system virtual office, workspace, application, platform, file sharing... The words went on.

I guess the starting point must have been an economic one - people will not pay for a platform. A platform looks too much like TCP/IP - and should be free, whereas it is well thumbed that people buy applications. From a sales perspective people buy products. And in a competitive marketplace such as collaboration I guess this was an image that both haunted and drove Groove forward.

Having made the decision to go as an application the sales / marketing challenges are then head-on against technical challenges. The platform must be part of the solution. Whatever else you do you must have the platform. The platform contains all the replication and encryption technology.

On top of the platform comes the application, the GUI, the manifestation, the thing people buy. So there are different models for the application. Build a light app with an API, SDK and so on and support a developer community to complete the apps. Or build higher-level development environments such as the Forms sandbox, which is where we are now.

But the core problem with the application is how far do you go? Do you progress a small number of comprehensive tools, or do you spread your resources thinly and try to create a wide range of shallow and possibly incomplete tools.

And all the time you are needing to break new ground with the platform and suddenly you cannot do everything, and the part that always loses out is the application. That, in my opinion must have been and still be the core challenge. The platform.

As many readers will know I spend considerable time supporting people with teething problems on the Support Forums and it was partly because of this effort that we launched our own forums. We are please this becoming a comprehensive, independent and strictly alternative resource for those interested in Groove (end of sales pitch :-))

Essentially the platform is still biting back. I have predicted that GFS spaces will still take some time to resolve. I could easily argue that it will not stabalize until Longhorn. But it is not just the platform. And it is not just the app.

It is the perception. A new person starts to use Groove and finds it seductively easy. Downstream some problems begin to appear and it is very difficult for the user to control their own problems. Part of the challenge here was that an oft-stated goal of Groove is that it should be "easy".

Being easy was translated into very little monitoring, and very little debugging tools or facilities. And any that were supplied were very opaque or only available to the minority. This has in my eyes been one of the biggest failures. It has meant that users of whatever stature have been working blind. That has mean that the positive feedback loop required for a rapid and effective development cycle was left open. Despite many and frequent pleas for ANYTHING that would help Groove advocates help Groove help themselves we were met with nothing in this arena.

So even today the platform is dogged with trivia such as outbound alerts that we have to "take on trust" to have arrived. Even today we are met with cpu and disk problems that turn off new customers.

The perception is that Groove has many very Beverley's & Boston's brighest: a group of people who have an unshakeable self-belief. I just hope that some mediocre people from MS come along and provide some much needed balance.

A silent prayer

I am not religious in any way. But it has been difficult for me, along with everyone else not to be touched by the Tsunami disaster on Boxing Day 2004. From our remote island of Great Britain such problems can only seem remote: or can they.

In our little way we were able to provide assistance to http://www.info-share.org who were in the thick of things in their home of Sri Lanka. Inside our closetted Groove world, I and other Groovers were able to find out, in real time what was happening on the ground, and indeed still is.

Throughout all that time I have struggled in vain to sum up the disaster. I have blogged very little on the subject because of this. The people who are able to express things most clearly are those who talk from first hand experience.

If you do nothing else read http://comment.cio.com/weighin/022805.html and consider the perspective of one person who speaks for himself and others on the front line.

Trust is everything

Absolutely everything we do successfully is built on trust. The lesser the trust the greater the risk and likelihood of failure. Trust a matter of rights and responsibilities for each player. Every balanced contract will ensuring each party's rights and responsibilities clearly down on paper. Except that words are not enough to define trust, so what is written tends to be protection against the negatives, and hardly ever the positive. The positive is left to the imagination in that far more eloquent ether of the imagination.

eBay has an interesting take on trust. If you go into a shop and complain about something you can shout to the top of your voice. You can write a letter or talk to the owner. You can write to a newspaper.

Who hears your complaint? Which of those might be influential shoppers interested in the same product or service as yourself? Probably only a very small percentage hear or read. As soon as you are out of the shop the shop can continue business as if you had never happened. The chances of many relevant people reading a newspaper article about your problem is a chance in a thousand.

No so with eBay. When you buy or sell something on eBay every single purchaser or buyer has the quick and easy ability to see whether to trust you or not. They can do this with the most relevant information possible - recent purchases and sales.

And this is very powerful and is so easy to use that it is used by almost every shopper or seller. And there are many eBay'ers who go further and refuse to sell or buy from people who do not have a high trust rating!

My "better half" has recently got into eBay and is extremely proud of her 100% rating to date. She looks forward to that rating being enhanced. How can you get better than 100%? With that percentage is a concept of track record. In eBay this is measured in stars. Stars provide a measure of history, of depth to someone's quality. Add that to the percentage and you have very quick and metrics that are so easily understood.

eBay is not unique in this system. epinions.com is another interesting example. At epinions you rate not only products and services but people who comment. After that the result is very similar to eBay. Direct access to something that could not be enshrined in words in contractual form, no matter what your skill level as a wordsmith.

Such Internet based systems are a new trust paradigm. That is that you cannot get away from who you are and your record is easily accessible by the people who matter.

But with eBay and Epinions you can escape. With most web technologies you can escape. You can restart with yet another E-mail address. You can easily start over with a new identity.

With Groove you cannot so easily restart. In fact it is almost impossible to restart. Your identity is tied to an account. Your account is fixed, enshrined and bound to you and your digital signature.

Yes you can start a new account - but then you break with your Groove history and the new trust rating is almost zero on any new account. And you aren't going anywhere until your trust level grows.

Trust ratings in Groove are based on consistency. Consistency of a very soft thing - provable dialogue. These are intangible assets but very powerful ones. Everything you say and do in Groove is stamped by date and account.

The trust model is extended by space membership. By being in "a space" other space members assume you are bona-fide. Again this is a very soft measure of trust, but very powerful.

If and that is a big IF, someone should compromise your Groove account and do a bit of identity theft, yes they could steal the information that is available to you at that instant. But to spoof you, your phrases, your computer manner is an almost inconceivable thing.

And that is what makes Groove different. And that is why Bill "trustworthy computing" Gates is acquiring Groove.

No man is an island!

I have often tried to work out what it is about Groove that makes it stand out. What is it that makes it so more-ish. What is it that make me such an evangelist. What it is that... oh, get on with it Swarbrick.

Well I have recently struck up yet another deep and meaningful conversation over Groove conversation. That is not meant to be disparaging in any way. rarely is a conversation over Groove anything else. Whereas in Email it is difficult to be personal - unless one already has a good relationship. This deepness and meaningfulness is a mutual thing that all participants who partake of the Groove communication at that moment feel.

This is why so many small businesses feel inherently that Groove is an atractive technology. Suddenly they are no longer alone in such a large and possibly predatory world. Suddenly they can "party" with people from anywhere in the world (even next door!) and strike up a common agenda and negotiate it in an easy and stress-free way towards a mutually beneficial result.

Being alone is a horrible depressing thing - stick with E-mail at your peril! Become part of the 21st century and get off that island.