Tag Yammer

Google behind the firewall – a reality not a myth

Is Google + finally going to come of age?

I’ve long argued that Google+’s ‘public’ profiles are something of a stalking horse for Google’s more corporate aspirations. And at the end of August, the (former) search engine took another giant leap into offering collaboration and content software for enterprises by launching a set of Google+ features specially for businesses.

The quietly-announced development means that some corporates can formally use some of Google+’s innovative features as part of the suite of Google apps. Group video conferencing (on hangouts) during which teams can share, discuss and edit (google) docs in real-time is now a reality.

The battle-lines are increasingly being drawn for enterprise-level ‘social’ software. Microsoft recently bought Yammer, and IBM has long been active, along with Salesforce and Jive and a number of other players. It’s only a matter of time before Facebook makes a play in this financially-lucrative market.

The days of organisations being tied down to using what came bundled with Microsoft Office are drawing to an end.

And the days of organisations starting to build communications networks structured around the ways that people actually like to communicate are beginning.

Enterprise social networks – Facebook inside the Firewall

As increasing numbers of businesses consider whether (and how) to apply social networks across their enterprise – how to take the best bits of Facebook and Google+ behind the firewall – and whether to use off-the-shelf (e.g. Yammer), customisable (Jive) or bespoke (e.g. IBM/Lotus) platforms to deliver it, this deckfrom Altimeter’s Charlene Li summarises some of the key objetives, and outcomes as noted by the relative early adopters in this space. All of the businesses interviewed have 250+ employees, but some of the conclusions are drawn from a sample of only 40 or so – so illustrative at this stage rather than definitive. Having said that – there are clear themes emerging from the US-based research:

  • The key objectives cited are: sharing of best practice/increased collaboration, followed by ‘supporting a transformation of the business/evolving the company culture‘ (my italics – I’m increasingly interested in link between culture and tools, and also business architecture)
  • Over half of those surveyed deployed an enterprise social network across the whole business, rather than across specific departments from day 1
  • While most respondents can claim better and faster collaboration, significant use and adoption, relatively few are (yet) seeing this translate into hitting business goals

The deck (indeed Charlene’s blog and books) are well worth reading…

Slides from “Making The Business Case For Enterprise Social Networks” Report

View more presentations from Charlene Li

Social business and serendipity – a match made in heaven

Newcomers to the concept of social business get hung up on the technologies, the shiny new toys that IBM, Jive or Yammer let people play with.

But what makes businesses social is not the technologies, it’s the culture. Which the technologies can amplify.

I’ve just finished reading the excellent Steve Jobs biog. One of the things which struck me about how he set up Apple was the architecture of the buildings he created for the company. Architecture actively designed to encourage people to bump into eachother.

Simply to use a toilet some people had to take a 10 minute walk – explicitly because Jobs recognised the benefits of serendipity. Yes there was secrecy involved in product development, but the company was structured so that people working on different things would bump into eachother in massive public spaces. So that random conversations might lead to cross-team collaboration.

All of which fitted neatly into the extremely iterative processes he liked. And which clearly worked.

Yes, there are new technologies now which make it easier for people to ‘bump into eachother’ online. And any number of companies are adopting social business technologies, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that people like dealing with other people – not with departments and structures.

Social business is all about helping to make that happen. About encouraging serendipitous encounters. And about giving people (or in Apple’s case forcing people) to spend time away from the top of their to-do list, just to see what might happen.