Social in Business: The Technology of Being Social

In this installment of the social in Business we address the Technology of Social in business.

Rather than rattling off the current social tools market with my color commentary, I felt this topic is a good opportunity to talk about the “technology” of Social Technology. My main point is that there are many tools that fall into the social technology market category. The social capabilities that each tool supports are key to knowing which tools to deploy in the business. You've by now likely heard me preach about the perils of installing technology for technology’s sake (cue soapbox).  If you’ve been following this series by now hopefully you have caught on that social in business is not a " build it an they will come" scenario; that it takes time, forethought and concentrated effort to make social solutions a success in the business environment

It makes sense then to take a closer look, in technological terms, what social tools are really doing for users and the business. Deep down, at it’s core, social technology is about communications. How people connect and communicate using electronic devices and networks. The extremely short history of electronic communications goes like this (we’ll start around 1970):

·      First came e-mail, which has dominated electronic communications since the early 1970’s and still (according to a recent Ipsos/Reuters poll) supports more than 85% of communications worldwide. E-mail continues to make our working lives better and miserable all that the same time.

·      As productivity tools and networks improved, collaborative tools (e.g., Lotus Notes) emerged for doing interactive processes with groups of people.

·      Then, as networks expanded (corporate and Internet) and devices got "smarter" (e.g., mobile phones and laptops) we looked to better forms for real-time communication (e.g., chatting and conferencing) and collaboration. This movement helped to bring down organizational and operational barriers of time, device, and location.

·      As the Internet grew and improved security emerged, the consumerization of electronic communications exploded. The opportunity to re-design the interfaces for electronic communications allowed us to add on more nuanced personalization and interaction with our information and colleagues.

Social tools are essentially then next evolution of communications with a personalized perspective. I like to think of social as a re-skinning of our communications, giving users a more “ego-centric” view of all the events (e.g., messages, data, information) going on around us as they wish to see and interact with it.

Socially enabled interfaces come new technologies such as profiles, presence, streams/feeds, and “likes”. In essence, the purpose of social technology is to act as an aggregator and filter of communications. Whether it’s one to one conversations or broadcasting, text or audio, feeds or streams, social technology is there to help users to communicate in a wide range of modalities.

So what does that mean for social in business? It means that choosing social tools depends heavily on the way the business communicates and how that communication supports the business’ needs. Savvy companies take time to understand their environment and business needs, to identify specific use cases and purposes for the social tools and then assemble the tools accordingly. In other words, knowing the value of communications tools on the business and which ones are most appropriate for the firm is paramount to a successful social tools strategy.

The social business tools market is growing rapidly and, typical of new markets, the market is dynamic and volatile. It’s a complex equation to decide which tools to deploy. The gnarly set of options today include:

·      Cloud or in-house

·      Hosted (dedicated or shared)

·      Consumer (e.g., Facebook or Google+)

·      Traditional productivity vendors e.g., IBM (Notes+Samtime+Connections) or Microsoft (soupped-up SharePoint)

·      Cloud-based business solutions e.g., Yammer or Salesforce.com with add-ons

·      Social business solutions such as Jive or SocialText on/off premises

Buying or building depends on existing tools (read licenses), the firm’s IT environment, the goals for social, risk and business tolerance. These choices can't be made in a vacuum. Sound social tool decisions can only be made by understanding how social technology is supporting the business: electronic communication with a personal touch.

Social in Business Series

Part 1 - What we are talking about
Part 2 - Build it and they will come (?)
Part 3 - What are we doing here anyway?
Part 4 - Rubber Meet Road

Social in Business: Rubber meet Road

In this next installment of Social in Business we focus on Strategy.

Hopefully the thesis of this post shouldn’t knock your socks off; in a nutshell, businesses need a social software strategy in order for the social in business to be successful at the firm.
Want to reach the holy grail of an e-mail free working environment? In reality what you’ll likely find, especially if you do the strategy legwork, is that the goal is not getting rid of e-mail. Rather, the goal is to improve e-mail usage so that it is not a drag on productivity. And yes, social tools can help with that. That goal, however, will never be achieved unless the firm puts in place a strategy with plans and guidelines for effectively mitigating e-mail stresses through social tools.

By strategy I mean a well-considered plan for selecting, deploying, managing, and educating users on the technology that will support social working activities. Social software options (e.g., vendors, tools, cloud, on-premise) options can become overwhelming very quickly. A good strategy considers the different options, how the business works, and then gauges success through identifiable metrics and milestones. It also means doing a fair amount of homework on the technology state, corporate governance, internal communications, cost factors, and operational requirements for deploying different options. Assessing this information and building a strategy that addresses these factors of the business not only aids in making decisions but also helps to identify viable solutions and (hopefully) documents the rationale for those decisions.

Why is this necessary? Because, like anything else in business, times and technology change. If the firm knows why it chose something in the first place, and documented what was successful and what failed, it will be a lot easier to modify and keep up with new trends as they come along. For example, knowing why the firm chose an on-premise solution over cloud-based solution is valuable information, especially if the reasons, cost, and rationale for that choice are documented and the plan is clearly defined on paper. It becomes much easier to recalibrate choices or make changes should a compelling reason for one choice become obsolete. Going back to the example, subsequent network upgrades might cloud-based solutions easier to support and more cost effective, hence the firm can quickly revisit the old rationale and decide if it applies any longer.

Strategies also help to communicate to the business and executives the nature of social software and that it takes time for success. Documenting the plan for development, deployment, and success metrics for social in business helps non-technical colleagues understand the cultural and working shifts that come with social software. It becomes much easier for the business to support new technology efforts if they know what to expect and when.

We all know that a good strategy and plan makes life easier with fewer gotchas when it comes to deployment. It can be hard to reign in enthusiasm for something new that will solve the “big” issues, but it’s worth the effort to take the time for strategy. No matter what the strategy is, the firm is better off with one. Even if the strategy is to let things grow organically and ad hoc, at least the consideration of the risks have been addressed, communicated and documented. What’s not to like about that?

Social in Business Series

Part 1 - What we are talking about
Part 2 - Build it and they will come (?)
Part 3 - What are we doing here anyway?

Social in Business: What are we doing here anyway?

This is the third post in the Top Dog/Elguji Social in Business blog series. The first post was entitled "Social in Business: What we are talking about" and the second was entitled "Social in Business: Build it and they will come (?)".

Today we focus on Objectives.

So if you’ve followed my blog (or other similar minded bloggers) you’ve likely come across one of my occasional rants about the pitfalls of buying technology for technology’s sake. This is sort of one of those posts in this installment of “Social in Business”, Objective.

It’s hard to pick a technology, even an everything-including-the-kitchen-sink type of technology as social software, if you don’t know what you need it for. Actually one of the drawbacks of technologies that offer many options, such as social software, is that it is the potential answer to many issues. Vendor’s sales and marketing like the Swiss Army Knife utility of social software because they can answer “yes” to many customer needs but it makes things that much harder to for the customer to figure out if it really needs the product or not. More specifically, with so many options it can be very hard to identify which parts of the product offer the most value to customer’s business.
Who knew the toothpick on the Swiss Army knife would end up being so handy? Taking the Swiss Army knife analogy a bit further, today there are many versions of the renowned knife on the market that customer’s really need to know what they want to carry around in their pockets and what is likely to be most useful; corkscrew or none? For me a corkscrew-less version would be virtually useless. And what about the semi-retired boy scout who might benefit more with a Leatherman. It’s all a matter of knowing which features will serve the greatest purpose for the unique needs of the customer. Regardless of which model the customer chooses, they will likely use some tools in the kit more than others depending on their needs.

The same applies when choosing social software for enterprises. Much depends on the firm’s needs and how it operates. In other words, if a firm has a strong hierarchy with lots of structure and formalized ways of completing work its social software needs are likely to be different from a de-centralized, cross-organizational firm that functions in more organic ways. Both are viable organizations but they have very different objectives and expectations for the social software technologies that they employ.

Before picking a specific social software technology, and more specifically a vendor, enterprises should look at the objectives for the technology. If it turns out that there are many objectives, pick the objectives that will provide the most value to the firm. Make these the leading objectives for the technology to solve and focus on how to achieve them. Some may be solved without any technology or simply by improving on existing technologies. But the key idea is that the firm must know what it needs to work on before picking a tool or technology.
Identifying the leading objectives for social software in the enterprise and how to meet them cannot be done in an IT vacuum and must include input from the business and operational sides of the firm. This will ensure greater success and adoption when the business is part of creating the solution. It is vital for enterprises to understand the working culture, needs, and goals for the social technologies they want to deploy prior to choosing which one to buy. Otherwise they might just end up with a giant, expensive brick in their pockets.

Social in Business: Build it an they will come (?)

This is the second post in the Top Dog/Elguji Social in Business blog series. Today we focus on people.

Social - tending or form cooperative and interdependent relationships with others.¹

By its very nature, the term social implies people. I particularly like this definition of “social” since it is open-ended enough to us to consider “others” as either people or information. After all, in the world of “social software” what we're really discussing here are technologies that foster relationships between people and other people, people and information, and information with other information. Bottom line is that social in business aims to tap into people and the human factors of how work gets accomplished. This is tricky stuff. There are so many subjective factors that a one-size-fits-all approach to social software in the enterprise is virtually impossible. What we can do is look at best practices and figure out if they support the specific business or process we seek to improve and then apply what makes best sense to succeed.

As noted in our first post, enterprises are moving beyond the "it's just a fad" opinion of social software to cautious optimism and beginning to formulate just what social software would look like at their firm and how it can improve business. The fact that social software in each business can mean different things is probably a blessing and a curse. On the one hand it's great to have many options but on the other hand it means more complexity in figuring out which options to implement first or which things will support the firms needs the best.

Understanding which options to pick means having a good idea on how people at the firm work and what tools will help them do their jobs most effectively. Today that's a moving target. With mobile, consumer tools (e.g., Facebook, Google Plus), globalization, telecommuting, and the changing workforces, not only are the lines blurred between work and personal business but also navigating the matrix of different working styles is becoming more difficult to quantify and address. For example, the fact that I’m siting in a café in downtown LA right now while writing this does not mean I am any more or less effective than if I were sitting at a desk in an office building. In other words firms need to address all of these “human” factors to keep up and make a productive working environment.

Since people are vital to social in business we are seeing HR, Operations, and departments other than IT initiating social in business. This makes a lot of sense, considering that we are talking about working with and impacting the culture of the organization and how it works.  It also makes sense that parts of the organization dedicated to its culture and operations are very interested in what happens with social technology.

IT has the power to make the enterprise more effective but IT has never been accused of being a social mover or shaker. Rightfully so, IT really should not be in the business of changing corporate working culture; it should be in the business of making sure that people work effectively and securely through the proper use and implementation of tools. IT’s role is to help the human factors side of the business succeed at social in business. This can only be accomplished through planning, implementing, and cooperating with the people parts of the business.

Social software in business isn’t just a matter of “build it and they will come.” Rather, social in business requires first, an understanding of how people work together with others (people and information) to conduct business. Only then can IT implement and create an ecosystem that will support the social business needs most effectively.

1. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social

Social in Business: What we are talking about

For the last 6 months I’ve been having regular discussions with Bruce Elgort on the subject of Social Software in business. Bruce is in the business of helping companies collect and build ideas. The firm he co-founded, Elguji, is, as the web site masthead says, “Helping Companies Innovate” by offering tools (such as its best-selling IdeaJam) that facilitate collaboration to effectively bring new ideas to market. Together we’ve been looking at the ins-an-outs of deploying social media in a business environment and the earmarks of success. Long story short, we decided to put some of our thoughts down in prose and broadcast it to our readers in a series of blog posts on Social in Business.

Just to be clear, you may have read my recent posts about IBM’s Social Business Gambit and my thoughts about IBM’s new social approach to the collaboration and communications market. These posts are not about that, instead, they are focused on approaches and strategies that businesses can develop as they explore social media in the business environment.

Social in Business Today

Enterprise IT is beginning to move into a formulation phase in the evolution of social tools in business. Recent presentations by research analysts (e.g., Gartner, Forester) and vendors (e.g., IBM) are moving from the question of “What is Social?” to the discussion of “Strategies for Social.” This new conversation indicates that customers are looking beyond the fad and considering how social within the organization might impact them. The perspective is also shifting from external to internal social. If we were to poll most executives on what social is we'd likely get more of an external facing response, such as “brand building” or “customer interfacing”. But as Gartner points out in a recent webinar, “Taking a Strategic Approach Social Media”, there are at least 6 opportunities for what Gartner calls Mass Collaboration by using social inside the business. That list includes:

• Collective intelligence
• Expertise location
• Interest cultivation
• Relationship leverage
• Flash coordination
• Emergent structures

Gartner also notes that oftentimes when a firm engages in social initiatives, the projects typically take advantage of more than one of these opportunities. Rightfully so, once tools are in place for doing one thing they invariably support other activities. The trick is to identify the most valuable opportunities for the firm and foster their success.

The Mission: Build a Strategy

Agility and versatility in IT environment is the new mission of the IT Operations Manager who is becoming more a solutions architect than an implementer. IBM’s last three annual CIO studies note that along with cost savings innovation is a priority for most organizations. So cost saving and innovation are not mutually exclusive. CIOs see IT delivery as having it all. As Bruce asked me how does the director of it operations do it? How do they keep up?

Overall managers, business and IT, need to consider all the options for social in the business and design a strategy to be successful within the parameters of their business. A strategy will help the organization to understand what needs to be done, how to choose the technologies it will deploy, and guide decision-making. In agile companies strategies are organic and evolve informing modifications while the firm’s needs change. Strategies also serve as an anchor for making sound decisions. If certain assumptions and rational were used to make one decision they can likely be used or modified for future decisions.

More to Come…

We’ll be posting more of these types of topics in the upcoming weeks. We hope these blogs will get you thinking more about the things that we are concerned about. We think the tactical and strategic market knowledge of Elguji and Top Dog is a great combination to help you to kick-start your social in business strategies.

IBM's Social Business Gambit - What do I think?

In my last post I outlined what I consider IBM’s Social Business gambit coming out of the Lotusphere/Connect 2012 conference this month. But I really didn't get into my opinions whether I think it will work. So, here goes...

Am I buying it?

Yes, the message. The IBM Social Business gambit and re-brand away from the Lotus marque is primarily a marketing message. Overall IBM clearly articulated and streamlined its message on the communications/collaboration tools market. I think this is a very good start. Quite frankly, given the current market and competition, it’s about the only option IBM had. The good news is that they are doing it.

To expand, IBM’s Social Business market strategy is a re-tooled perspective on where communications/collaboration has been heading for a long time. Bottom-line, the problems we trying to solve are not new; just there’s new technology to help us get things done. As Linda Stone explains we be been moving through evolutionary phases of technology changing how we work. Right now were evolving towards understanding our information by being able to use it more effectively:

Today, we are Knowledge Workers evolving into Understanding Workers.  Understanding Workers use technology to anticipate, judge and act.

This idea fits nicely with Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s Lotusphere keynote in which he spoke about being on the cusp of the semantic web. Longstanding technology that has served us well is fraying at the edges in a continually connected, multi- device, big data working world. Information management is going from find-ability to connect-ability.

The problem for most enterprises is how to provide for Understanding Workers and what it means operationally. That’s what IBM is attempting to address by shifting the conversation to Social Business and away from why e-mail stinks. Changing the topic reboots the conversation and refocuses the issues to the cultural shift that enterprises need to go through to get to the other side. So am I buying the changed conversation and the idea of the social business? Yes.

Will companies buy it?

Hard to say, but customers are looking for innovation, and that usually is a new conversation even if the problem is the same. Social software solutions are not streamlined today, although many are coming closer (e.g., Salesforce.com) or are well enabled to do so (e.g., Jive’s December 2011 $120M IPO).  But just when the business begins to take an active interest in the technological culture of the firm, the way workers access information and each other has exploded into a complex matrix of devices, technologies, and solutions.

Delivering a reassuring message about how IBM understands enterprise issues and providing understandable approaches to new technology complexities offer customers a sound starting point. IBM has got to feel confident about it, and it’s clear that they do.

However, it is a guarded IBM installed-based that IBM is running this by first. A market message is only good if it garners interest; the success of a strategy is in the technology execution and delivery. Redefining the conversation and demonstrating what life might be like only goes so far. Success depends on whether or not customers can comfortably replicate the experience being demonstrated to them.

Will IBM win?

They way I see it, IBM has three hurdles to clear in order for the social business gambit to pay off:

1.     Technology delivery

2.     Market disruption

3.     New competitors

Proof of the technology is in the execution. IBM needs to stay the course and execute its technology and delivery well. I didn't get to see the technical presentations at Lotusphere/Connect 2012. Combine that with IBMs increasing coyness to reveal the inner workings of its technology and it's hard to for me honestly evaluate whether the technology is sound. Given IBMs performance over the last 4 years I am cautiously optimistic.

In its last major communications/collaboration software change-up IBM effectively sold the message of a new beginning to many customers. The long awaited Domino 8.0 and the Eclipse-based client (delivered in August 2007) provided a B12 perception booster for customers eagerly awaiting improvements to a haggard code-base. The message worked, staving off customer defections temporarily, but the technology of the updated system was not as promised. This caused a lot of buyer’s remorse and IBM struggling to keep its customer-base intact.

Even the die hard, bleed yellow folks were exasperated. Attributed by some to the offshoring of development and the decimation of the US development and QA, the execution of the early Notes/Domino 8.0.x code stream opened the doors for competitors and other IBM Lotus technologies (i.e., Connections) to swoop in and displace the Lotus crown jewels. Note, general consensus is that the 8.5 release of Notes/Domino at the end of 2008 was much more stable as are subsequent releases, most recently version 8.5.3 released in October 2011.

More recently IBM has placed its marketing focus on the front end and user experience of its communication/collaboration tools. This approach has been successful in capturing the attention of the business buyers, however, the once-bitten, twice shy effect of unrealized Domino 8.0 promises has left a degree of skepticism in customer’s minds that IBM continues to contend with.  

Which comes to market disruption. A frustrated customer-base makes for easy fishing by competitors, and both Microsoft and Google have been casting long lines with varying success. For IBM to succeed it needs to be disruptive enough not only to stop this feeding frenzy and but also for its competitors to stop writing IBM off.  IBM needs to make it a goal to get its competitor’s sales reps to start complaining about IBM disruption.

On the one hand IBM could simply write off the likes of Cisco, Google, Microsoft and Oracle as being behind the social times, however that would be short-sighted since these business have large customer bases in other areas that can be leveraged for new technologies, no matter how passé their messages seem.

It’s not only the usual suspects that comprise the social IT market. IBM, by changing the discussion, wittingly or not, jumped into a competitive pool that includes a new breed of providers. In addition to the known entities, IBM will need to fend off a variety of social software sharks including, Jive, SocialText, Salesforce.com, and Yammer.

The competition boils down to gaining the attention of customers – existing and new - enough to be disruptive. With this many players the market share will be diluted until acquisitions and dropouts consolidate the market place. Until then IBM will need to gain the attention of customers that have lots of choices and little (for now) internal direction on where to go.

Final words

Overall my analysis is, it depends. It depends on what IBM can and will deliver. It depends on whether or not IBM can become disruptive enough to gain new customers in a crowded market place. It depends on if IBM can compete against a new breed of competitor.

Ok, pretty wishy-washy, but here’s what I will say. IBM’s Social Business message is a good start to driving the mindset of the market, and if IBM manages to get it to trickle into its sales and development ranks, then IBM is on the right path to restoring customer confidence and sparking innovation. Since the social market is hardly a vacuum these days, IBM will need to get more down and dirty to influence things. Although I am doubtful about the likelihood of IBM doing this, a couple strategic acquisitions would go a long way to thinning the competition and is likely to gain customer confidence in IBM’s commitment to social business.

I predict that IBM will succeed in attracting business buyer interest with its Social Business message but it will likely stumble on the same hurdles that have challenged IBM in the past, including staying on message throughout the IBM organization; a cultural shift that IBM has yet to accomplish.