GigaOM » Collaboration

Chatter builds its social supercontinent with new real-time features

Jessica Stillman — Tue, 22 May 2012 16:01:10 +0000

Salesforce, executive John Wookey told GigaOM earlier this year, is betting on social, envisioning a future where not just communication tools get a social rethink, but nearly every area of business.

“Over the next five years this will start sweeping through companies. In the same ways that Rypple has taken this model of social networking as a fundamental design point and applied it to performance management systems, I think you’re going to see it apply to a lot of systems, whether it’s recruiting, compensation or learning systems. I think it will eventually hit things like your financial budgeting and planning systems, your project systems, anything where the work is inherently social,” he said.

That’s a lot of social. But hopefully, in Saleforce’s vision of how things unfold, not a lot of different social tools. We spoke with to Dave King, director of product marketing for Chatter, about new real-time chat and screen sharing features for enterprise social network Chatter that the company is announcing today, and he explained that the overarching aim of the new additions to the product is to integrate “islands of communication” so that employees need not switch through multiple tools but can access this growing array of social processes through Chatter. Salesforce wants, in effect, to link these islands together and create a Pangaea of social with Chatter at its center.

Looking very much like a Gchat within Chatter, the new messaging tool lets workers message others, either singly or in groups of up to ten, within the organization (i.e. other Chatter users at the company) without having to switch windows or open another application. Your buddy list is automatically generated from all those you’re already connected to on Chatter. The in-browser screen sharing application is designed to replace the likes of WebEx for internal discussions. Both tools are freely available to all existing customers as of today, as well as those using the free version of the product.

This additional functionality is good news for current users, but it’s also interesting in what it indicates about where Salesforce sees social tools going. “Every business process has a combination of unstructured or social processes and structured processes,” King explains. “Let’s take recruiting. When I’m recruiting maybe I email a PDF of the resume around and I’m IMing people who interviewed the candidate to get their feedback, but all of those things are in different places.”

Chatter wants to be your portal into all those actions and to the increasing array of business areas that Wookey predicted are getting a social overhaul. “We think it all needs to be united. So let’s say your files are in SharePoint and maybe you have an HR system in a different place, Chatter, with our Chatter Connect API, can be the unifying social layer that really brings all those things together,” King says, who added that Salesforce is also hoping to enable collaboration with those external to Chatter through the platform in the future.

Rather than tools proliferating as more processes go social, Salesforce wants all of those additional functions to integrate with Chatter. That’s good for the company, of course, as their products become more tightly woven into ever more aspects of your business, but the message out of Salesforce is it’s also a matter of increased efficiency for the user.

Do you see an integrated platform model dominating the future of social, or are we more likely to see a profusion of “social islands” dominate the scene for a good while yet?

Image courtesy of Salesforce.

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Do we need WordPress for the enterprise?

Jessica Stillman — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:56:47 +0000

The collaboration space is very crowded, especially if you consider research showing most organizations are still just dipping a toe into the concept of social tools. So what does the fact that there are so many offerings clamoring for attention and domination mean? Is this slightly chaotic diversity of products a good thing? Do we need a war of attrition where one existing collaboration product fights its way to undisputed king-of-the-jungle status? Or is this welter of options a sign that the we’re still waiting for a product so intuitive and satisfying that we all finally sigh and say, yes, THAT was what we were looking for all along?

Jacob Morgan, co-founder of collaboration consultancy Chess Media Group, recently posted his answer to this question on his blog. His perspective: we’re still waiting for a breakout collaboration product, and it should look like “WordPress for the enterprise.” Of course, there is an enterprise version of WordPress, but assumedly that’s not what Morgan means. He explains how the collaboration solution he’d most like to see is instead like WordPress in key ways:

What we need is a “WordPress for the enterprise” and before its acquisition I thought Podio was the closest to moving down that road. When you think of WordPress you think of a content management and delivery platform but it’s more than that. Take a look at how many millions of sites all run on WordPress, each with a unique look and feel and each with it’s own set of features and plugins that can be customized and added to make every site unique and individual. Currently we don’t have anything like this for the enterprise. Sure, some vendors have their own app stores where you can buy and download application specific additions but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Atlassian is probably the closest vendor out there to building a complete enterprise ecosystem with apps but even those are focused on the single platform.

He calls this vision of DIY collaboration suites supported by an extremely flexible platform “the widgetized enterprise” and says there are several roadblocks keeping us from this version of the future. One, “we don’t have collaboration standards for all the vendors out there to get them to speak the same language,” and two the market lacks a true platform vendor. But Morgan has hopes that we’ll see something like what he’s after soon. “Eventually we will get to a more widgetized collaboration platform that allows us to take the bits and pieces we want from every vendor and combine them together to make something that works for us,” he concludes.

What do you make of Morgan’s vision of the future of collaboration tools – have you already found a platform that’s flexible and customizable enough to meet your business’s needs, or are does WordPress for the enterprise sound like the solution you’ve been searching for?

Image courtesy of Flickr user Phil Manker.

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Social business and the valley of disinterest

Jessica Stillman — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:04:53 +0000

With the rise of consumer social media and the untethering of work from a fixed geographic location, interest in ways to put social tools to work in the enterprise has been on the rise. A host of business-specific collaboration offerings from Yammer to Rypple are aiming to capture the interest of firms, while nearly every business is trying to figure out how to best utilize the likes of Facebook and Twitter. But are all companies equally engaged in figuring out how to do social?

Recent research that MIT Sloan Management Review conducted in collaboration with Deloitte reveals a striking pattern, according to an intriguing post in MIT Sloan’s Improvisations blog. When asked whether they believed social business was important, those at the biggest and smallest firms showed the greatest interest, with a steep fall off in interest among those at mid-sized organizations. Here are the percentage of respondents who agreed with the importance of social business by company size:

Less than 1,000 employees: 21.2 percent
1,000-5,000 employees: 13.6 percent
5,000 – 10,000: 13.6 percent
10,00-100,000: 12.1 percent
More than 100,000: 21.2 percent

Why might this be? The post speculates that, “social tools enable smaller organizations to appear bigger, and larger companies to appear ‘smaller’ — more accessible, responsive, and nimble,” noting that 31 percent of the smallest firms thought these tools were important to growing revenue, a much higher percentage than at larger companies. Gerald Kane, a professor at Boston College, suggests this may be because smaller firms can use social tools “as a way of increasing their voice, as a way of connecting with customers.” The analysis of the findings in ongoing, according to the post, and the final results will be published sometime this spring, so those who are interested should keep their eyes open for the full report.

In the meantime, what’s your reaction to these initial results – are mid-sized firms underestimating the potential benefits of social or are these tools really of less value to businesses of this size?

Image courtesy of Flickr user Nicholas_T.

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Why is Facebook addictive but enterprise social adoption a challenge?

Jessica Stillman — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:02:35 +0000

It hardly takes a raft of studies or in-depth research to prove that consumer social media like Facebook and Twitter can be hugely addictive. From our personal lives and stories in the media, most of us intuitively know that the little shots of connection and amusement we get from these sites make it sometimes difficult to log off, even when you know your excessive time on them is less than healthy for your brain (or your self-esteem).

While the addictive properties of social media are totally obvious, so is the truth that introducing social tools in an enterprise context is a tricky business, and driving adoption is sometimes a painfully slow process. As David Lavenda, VP of marketing at social email company harmon.ie, recently pointed out here on WebWorkerDaily, recent Forrester research found widespread under-utilization of the social tools that organizations have invested in, with 64 percent of companies reporting they realized few, if any, benefits from the investment.

And that’s a paradox. Why do we love social tools in our personal lives but often shun them in a professional context? Author and prominent business thinker Tammy Erickson recently pondered this question on the HBR Blog Network, outlining the key differences between the consumer social experience and the enterprise one. In our personal lives, she argues, social media have these characteristics:

We’re usually invited to participate by people we know and trust.

There are specific things we want to do with the other people involved, such as share photos, stay up-to-date on a club’s activities, or develop a personal reputation.

We get something back from participation: advice, practical information we need, a network to tap when times are rough, or the emotional pleasure of seeing others’ photos or hearing their news.

We have control over who sees our information.

The applications are intuitive — there’s no training required.

The applications are well-tuned to support the specific tasks we want to perform, and their features are regularly rated and refined.

Meanwhile, social at work is very different:

Often we’re instructed to use it by someone in authority, rather than invited by friends.

Little of what we actually get paid to do (or believe we get paid to do) requires information or input from the vast majority of other people on the network.

Participation feels like dropping pearls into a black hole — there’s often no sense of getting something in return for sharing an idea or suggestion.

We have no control over who sees our information and little idea what “they” are doing with it.

The site is unattractive and requires a manual to get started.

The software is generic and requires a work-around to do the specific things we would really like to do.

In the thoroughly interesting post she goes on to make suggestions on how organizations can make enterprise social more appealing to speed uptake of the tools, including offering a clear purpose for the initiative and tailoring offerings to existing user behavior. Have a read for her complete recommendations.

Do you think Erickson has nailed the essential differences between personal and professional social tools?

Image courtesy of Flickr user See-ming Lee.

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3 popular ways to screw up enterprise social

Jessica Stillman — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:00:51 +0000

Enterprise social networking may still be in its infancy when it comes to widespread adoption, but its popularity as a buzzword could hardly be hotter. What’s the result? A lot of folks with little experience of how to best use enterprise social tools rushing to introduce them. That’s not a recipe for a flawless roll out of new ways of working and sharing.

So what usually goes wrong? At Net:Work 2011 Podio CEO Tommy Ahlers suggested companies often make things too complicated, complaining about “Swiss army knives” that try to solve every problem and end up failing users. When I spoke with Yammer CEO David Sacks a few weeks ago, he suggested that companies often go wrong by “trying to bolt that on to some existing tool, because if the tool isn’t built from the ground up to be social, it’s not going to have the level of usability that’s required.”

Now David Lavenda, VP of marketing at social email company harmon.ie, has gotten into the act, offering up common ways that well intentioned companies muck up the roll out of social tools and suggesting better ways to bring these tools to your team. “Simply throwing out social tools isn’t going to work,” he says, pointing to recent Forrester research that found widespread under-utilization of social tools. The study shows that even though companies have invested in an average of five or more tools, 64 percent realized few, if any, benefits from that investment. Only 8 percent actually use social collaboration software once a week.

So what should you do if you want your company or team’s move to social to go as poorly as some of the roll-outs documented by Forrester?

Imagine your team loves change. Some people like nothing better than to shake things up and try something new, but you can be pretty sure that’s not everyone on your team. So when you’re thinking about rolling out a tool to make your organization more social, keep in mind the howls of complaint that greet even the smallest changes to social networks in the consumer space.

“People are naturally reluctant to change,” says Lavenda. “Enterprise 2.0 author Andrew McAfee warns organizations to, ‘never underestimate the fondness of people and organizations for the status quo.’ When transitioning to a social model, it’s imperative to understand exactly how users work. Then, build a strategy and toolset that integrates with these practices in a way that makes sense with their current workflow, rather than asking users to make a dramatic change in their behavior.”

Rip and replace. If the wheel is turning along with just a bit of a creak or wobble, it’s not a good idea to try and entirely reinvent it. “People are often lured into thinking they need something entirely new to solve a problem. Instead of a D-Day approach that flips the switch on relatively unproven technologies like blogs, wikis and allied next-gen tools—essentially asking employees to immediately abandon existing tools like email and documents—plan for a gradual introduction that allows users to get up to speed with new functionality and capabilities at a comfortable pace,” recommends Lavenda, adding, “the idea is to improve productivity, not hinder it.”

The more the merrier. More may be better when it comes to chocolate cake or vacation days, but not when it comes to tools for the social enterprise. Rather than asking your team to log in to six different things, try to find solutions that allow them one go-to place for many needs. “An effective social strategy must start in a familiar environment and then aggregate all other pieces into the users’ base of operations. The goal is to eliminate steps, not add more. Bundling collaboration tools together in a common context and shared window drives faster, more widespread adoption and delivers the promised benefits of social enterprise integration much quicker,” says Lavenda.

Have you experienced any serious screw ups in the real of enterprise social that you’d like to warn others to avoid?

Image courtesy of Flickr user markomni.

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Facebook Desktop for Adobe AIR: Web Worker-Friendly?

Darrell Etherington — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:00:56 +0000

Facebook only just announced that it would be making its stream API public, and now it’s following up with the launch of a new Adobe AIR desktop app that takes advantage of those capabilities. Yes, it’s an AIR app, which makes it slightly icky right away, but native desktop clients will no doubt follow in short order.

AIR app or not, the real question is: Will this bring Facebook back into my daily professional life?

Facebook has fallen out of favor with me. Sure, I still check it occasionally, but mostly I find myself hiding poll and survey results from my stream, rather than actually interacting with people. Twitter is by far my weapon of choice when it comes to social networking, owing partly to my ability to use it without actually paying a visit to the web-based app. I have lots of Facebook-only contacts that I’d like to interact with more, but the drawbacks of the site prevent me from using it with any real frequency.

With Facebook Desktop, I partly get my wish. Because the interaction I’m after from Facebook is based on my stream, Facebook Desktop gets the job done. Truth be told, I don’t miss having access to the rest of Facebook’s features, since I hardly use them anyway.

Thanks to Facebook Desktop, I now find myself viewing Facebook almost as a more exclusive Twitter user group. I can stay in touch with professional and personal contacts with whom I have deeper and more meaningful relationships, without having to filter through all the distracting stuff that’s almost inescapable on Twitter.

Does it mean Facebook will remain professionally relevant to me? It’s too early to tell for sure. Suffice it to say, it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

Do you still use Facebook for work? Will the new API or Facebook Desktop app affect your Facebook usage?

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Open Thread: What's Your Digital Dunbar Number?

Anne Zelenka — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 13:34:07 +0000

What’s the limit to the number of people you can maintain relationships with? What about online relationships?

British anthropologist Robin Dunbar suggests that 150 is the maximum number of people with whom any one person can maintain stable social relationships. That theoretical limit is known to sociologists and anthropologists as Dunbar’s number.

Might the number change when you’re talking about online relationships? Do tools like email, instant messaging, blogs, micro-blogs, and online social networks reduce friction and increase communication enough that the number of relationships you can maintain online might be greater than 150?

JP Rangaswami, who blogs at Confused of Calcutta, thinks his digital Dunbar number is higher than 150:

I’ve sensed that I have a Dunbar number of around 300 in the digital world, and I’ve been delighted to find I know most of the steady ones. Over the years I’ve actually met most of the community of readers, usually at conferences. The face-to-face contact, in turn, leads to a deepening of the relationship, and we land up creating and developing links in Facebook and Twitter. [I still land up with a smidgeon of LinkedIn requests, but to be frank the only reason I go to LinkedIn is to deal with Invitations to Connect.]

JP wants to get a conversation started about digital Dunbars and asks his readers:

How many Facebook friends do you have, how many regular readers of your blog, how many followers in Twitter, do you see a correlation between the three, if not why not, and so on. Do you tend to meet a core of this number on a face-to-face basis, if not why not? What other tools do you use, tools such as Dopplr and last.fm and netvibes and so on.

I’ve found I can comfortably follow only about 100 people on Twitter. Beyond that, I lose track of who people are and the experience feels more like noise than connecting. So I think my digital Dunbar might be below 150.

What about you? What’s your offline Dunbar number? Your digital Dunbar?

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