At the age of 27, Elon sold Zip2 for $307 million.  A t the age of 31, he sold PayPal to eBay for US$1.5 billion in stock, not to mention that he also operates companies to solve environmental, social and economic challenges such as Tesla, SpaceX (Dragon), reusable rockets, and SolarCity – as part of his agenda of building us a brighter, cleaner future.

Personally I have a fair amount of admiration for Elon.  In fact, when trying to explain why Kenesto (our social business collaboration tool) has an ad-hoc process capability, I often site a process argument made by Elon as an example.  In the article: “ELON MUSK ON ROCKETS AND WHY HE DOESN’T BELIEVE IN PROCESS”, Musk posits that “The problem is that at a lot of big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking”.

I therefore point out that this suggests to me that Kenesto’s ad-hoc processes not only allow employees to do more thinking while participating in business processes, but also helps to capture exactly what they were thinking along the way!

Yet, in some recent articles, Elon seems to demonstrate his lack of success at creating a positive image of himself:

• Working while spending time with kids, “Why Elon Musk And Chris Anderson’s SXSW Parenting Debate Is So Meaningful”, by Lisa Belkin. Where it was mentioned that Elon just lost the entire audience…that “they all shut down on him”.
• Being too aggressive in protecting Tesla’s reputation: “Elon Musk’s Crusade Against The New York Times Isn’t Helping Tesla”, by By Rebecca Greenfield, in which one of the comments was: “With the way that Musk has been attacking this guy – I am no longer an Elon Musk fan”
• Airing Dirty laundry in public: “My Wife Gets JACK SQUAT in the Divorce”

The questions I have are:  who would not defend their own inventions?  What average person doesn’t read emails or text their friends or read someone’s Facebook posts or talk on the phone – while their kids are around?  In today’s highly connected world, this seems to be more the norm than the exception.  What’s more, let’s face it – the guy is not exactly a Yahoo slacker!

In my view, he’s working hard, perhaps harder than anyone, to build a brighter future, not just for himself, but for all of us.  He is one of a very few inspirational people who is trying to build something to leave behind, for his “neglected” kids, and also for ours.

So yes, his self-marketing abilities seem to lack big time, but, I believe that for those people who are wise enough to acknowledge the contribution of innovations that Elon has brought and is about to bring to our world in order to build a brighter future, he is good enough just the way he is…

Read more: http://www.crunchbase.com/person/elon-musk#ixzz2Nu0eIGZc

The post Elon Musk: Successful Entrepreneur, Poor Self-marketer; which is more important? appeared first on Kenesto.

Marissa Mayer has a knack for shaking the world with her unique personality. The latest is her ban on working from home. In order to justify her actions, there is a supportive article “How Marissa Mayer Figured Out Work-At-Home Yahoos Were Slacking Off” by Nicholas Carlson (see link below), which confirms that Marissa is a woman with a brain who makes informed decisions backed by real analysis.

I’m still surprised by her decision though. The reason I am so surprised by her decision is the fact that I am meeting, reading, and often hearing about some very smart, ambitious and highly productive people who work from home. With today’s technology and a growing awareness toward social collaboration, it is so easy to be able to work from any place in the world, even from your home!

While I’m far from being in a position to judge or criticize Marissa, I cannot keep myself from asking the following questions:

1. Are daily log-ins into the Yahoo VPN network really indicators for who the real slackers are?
2. Isn’t there a better tool that helps measure individual productivity?
3. Is bringing the slackers into the office really going to solve the problem?

In other words, do we frequently analyze the wrong data? And if so, are we taking the right actions? I guess only time can tell.

Now most of you might think that I am a little biased, but I contend that the use of a Social Business solution (like Kenesto maybe) can be a great tool to measure the level of an employee’s “slack-ness”. For example, if I was involved in a process, a task, or just engaged in discussions, with tools like Kenesto (and others out there), there are very clear ways for a CEO like Mayer to measure my productivity.

Whether through the use of built-in reports, reviewing the audit trails from my activities, or just scanning the “brain-storming” conversations I might engage in, it is quite easy to see whether I am participating in productive activities or not, regardless my physical location.

My point is that most people are productive when they love their job, when they are being challenged, and when they are being rewarded and appreciated. I think there is very little correlation between the level of productivity and a physical location.

But again… time will tell. I do wish her luck!

-Maya.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-marissa-mayer-figured-out-work-at-home-yahoos-were-slacking-off-2013-3#ixzz2MsheHhfj”

The post Working from home… appeared first on Kenesto.

Our small world

I didn’t think so.  Of course, there was certainly no harm in having a few “end of the world” parties, but this world has a lot more to offer before it ends.

While I was waiting patiently to hear some big news from, say, New-Zealand the night when so many celestial bodies came together in a once-in-a-mayan-calendar lifetime, it occurred to me again how small this world really is, and how cool it is to be able to communicate across it.

There is no wonder and no big surprise that next big thing being talked about in business technology circles is the idea of Social Business Collaboration.  People love to communicate with each other.  They love to share with each other, regardless of how well they know each other.  You can see a range of different communication models that have taken our lives by storm, such as Facebook.  Facebook is really about sharing with people you (mostly) know, more on a personal level.  Then of course there are the Facebook-like’s such as Google+.  We’re staring to see the LinkdIn model take hold, where people can share their impressive working experience with anyone they (almost) know professionally.  Twitter is another example of a social tool that helps you project your ideas to the world, whether the rest of the world cares about it or not.

There are many, many, many, other social tools and platforms that serve as a small personal podium where you can show the rest who you are and what you think.

The point is that people have no doubt taken to these social tools in a very big way.  This is in part because they want to be heard and seen on one hand, but they also crave constructive feedback from society on the other.  Sharing ideas and different views are an important part of improving our self-thinking.  It is a way for us to stop and rethink and re-proof our ideas.  Of course, this is true for each of us as individuals, but is no less important for us when working as a team.

Why are sharing views and ideas so important to teamwork?

As a team we all bring our strengths and weaknesses to the group.  Some are excellent at problem solving, some are crazy creative, some know the facts, and some bring a personal touch.  We all contribute differently to the team effort. Furthermore, it’s easier to spot weak links, and clear out confusions.  But most importantly, we all teach and learn, receive, absorb, perceive, and give constantly.  We are the beneficiaries and we benefit as contributors.

Now, let’s go back to the “small world” concept for a second.  Many teams and companies today are spread around the globe. With today’s technology, communication is becoming easier and easier.  But communication doesn’t always mean sharing and collaborating as a team.  So how can we take it to the next level and take advantage of social network concepts and teamwork to promote productivity in our business?

Fortunately, more and more companies out there (Jive, Nuage, Kenesto, just to name a few) are taking advantage of the cloud computing platform, where companies can help their teams, either inside or outside the company, to get much more productive and creative while collaborating on projects, ideas and processes, with unlimited accessibility (as long as an internet connection exists), with full traceability, in an highly secured manner.

I imagine a little virtual “war room” that hosts a virtual team across company boundaries, to solve a very real problem, share ideas, collaborate on a solution, assign tasks to solve a problem, share files, trace processes and progress, and document the solution, so everyone can get more educated and know how to improve even better the next time around! Now this, to me, is a great outcome of our world becoming smaller – and more social.  A fun, exciting and pretty great little world to live in right?

-Maya

The post A New Era Begins! appeared first on Kenesto.

The cloud represents a complete transformation in the way people access and share information.  One important transformation the cloud has enabled is that of social business applications.  Social business applications have opened a new world of possibilities for the way people communicate.  The value of applying many concepts in B2C Social is now being extended to B2B Social Business and Process Collaboration applications.  Kenesto has taken the most valuable aspects of social cloud applications, and applied capabilities demanded by business enterprises – including security, process, and tracability to its Social Business and Process Collaboration solution.

Kenesto is hosted using Amazon Web Services (AWS).  Kenesto users benefit from:

• Multi-tenancy. Kenesto is built from the ground-up as a solution for organizations who demand security, performance, reliability, and peace-of-mind.  With Kenesto’s true multi-tenant architecture, our customers are assured of complete confident that their information is safe, segragated from that of other organizations.

The post Benefits of cloud deployment appeared first on Kenesto.

The post Kenesto’s Social Business and Process Collaboration Features appeared first on Kenesto.

The post What is Kenesto? appeared first on Kenesto.

The post Collaborate more socially appeared first on Kenesto.

The post slide06 appeared first on Kenesto.

The post slide05 appeared first on Kenesto.

The post slide04 appeared first on Kenesto.