Free Web Seminar by Tony Byrne of CMS Watch - Enterprise Social Software: Ready for Prime Time?

In anticipation of the IT Leadership Forum this November we are putting on several webinars. This is the 1st in the series in which Tony Bryne from CMS Watch will be presenting "Enterprise Social Software: Ready for Prime Time?" on Thursday August 13th from 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT. Here's a brief description of the event:

You can now find numerous case studies of successful departmental implementations of various social software technologies, such as wikis, blogs, forums, tags, micro-blogs, and so forth. However, extending those projects to enterprise-wide initiatives gets trickier.

Noted independent analyst and evaluation firm CMS Watch will explain how the challenge in enterprise deployments stems partly from immature technology. Many social computing tools – even from large, established vendors – lack key functionality. But the rest of the challenge lies in organizational factors, including common barriers to adoption.

This seminar will assess today’s social software and collaboration marketplace and offer concrete advice about how to select the right tool for your circumstances. It will also share best practices in enterprise deployment and adoption of social technology.

What you will learn by attending:
- Key success factors for enterprise-wide social software roll-outs
- How the enterprise social software marketplace breaks down into six categories
- Strengths and weaknesses of some of the major vendors
- How to pick the right tools for your enterprise
- What the future holds for 2010

Featured Speaker
Tony Byrne, Founder, CMS Watch

Make sure to mention priority code G1M2114W1BLOG when registering.
Register here: http://bit.ly/1pn1Um

Social Networking Within the Enterprise

Blogs, wikis, social networks is all the latest buzz, but has the enterprise truly caught on? The Burton Group recently conducted a study investigating whether companies are really using web 2.0 technology. Their in-depth research also helps businesses understand the business, organizational, and technical factors to consider when formulating social networking strategies and initiating internal projects.

Read the Burton Group Report

Government Interest in Social Software

I recently came across Michael Idinopulo’s latest post on Transparent Office in which he mentions that there is a lot of buzz and interest in social media in government. One of the first attempts at launching a community within government was Intellipedia, a community based forum that was used for sharing information across different intelligence agencies.

It’s come a long way since Intellipedia, government officials are now using blogs, social networks, and wikis to collaborate within agencies. I’m interested to see if the Obama administration will make social software go mainstream in government.

Enterprise 2.0 Industry Reports

The Enterprise 2.0 market is expected to reach $4.6 billion by 2013. Other predictions as mentioned in ReadWriteWeb,

-predicts that social networking tools and internal wikis "will have the greatest impact on workplace collaboration"
- expects enterprise microblogs to "become a feature, not a standalone product category"
- enterprise 2.0 apps will fall dramatically in price
- "cultural resistance" to social networks will "eventually break, allowing workers to connect with like-minded colleagues and enabling a collaboration channel that previously didn't exist in the enterprise."

To see all of the expected changes in the enterprise 2.0 market check out the report here.

Portal 2.0 and Beyond

Over the last few years, we’ve seen the evolution of portals within the enterprise to become more personalized to specific information needs of users, but what does the future hold in store for the portal universe? I came across this post on builder au in which Lana Kovacevic notes a couple of points from Gene Phifer in a recent conversation about the direction that portals are heading into.

Here are several characteristics Gene lists that the “portal of the future” will have:

1. Portals like iGoogle and MyYahoo already aggregate content, but portals of the future will facilitate content aggregation making it even more personalized.
2. Portals fabrics will evolve to the idea of the “follow me portal”, in which the look and feel of the portal will transform based on your location. This especially will be increasingly popular as the enterprise is experiencing a surge in mobile browsing on smartphones.
3. Social Web 2.0 functionalities are here to stay. Portals will continue to make use of technologies such as social networks, wikis, forums, and blogs.
4. Portals will fully integrate with all social networks. Plaxo is a good example of an integrated portal that aggregates updates from sites like Flickr, Twitter, and Digg. The “portal of the future” will be able to aggregate updates from these social applications as well as other networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Xing.
5. Collaboration is key in the enterprise; portals will play a part in improving the overall user experience.
6. The ability to aggregate mashed up content from more than one individual websites will be facilitated by future enterprise portals.

So you’ve seen Gene’s description of future portals, but what components and functionalities will your ideal “portal of the future” have?

Enterprise 2.0 Still Growing

Enterprise 2.0 technologies are certainly still growing within companies, however, not without concerns of the managers or IT personnel. According to this article at EWeek, security and liability are still the most common concerns when implementing web 2.0.

Of those who have increased the use of Web 2.0 tools in their companies, 71% of those surveyed cited that they’ve started using Web 2.0 tools because of the increased and improved collaboration and communication between their staff. In addition, 46% of the users cited increased collaboration and communication with their consumers.

What are the most used tools according to this study? It’s still the common ones we’ve been addressing here at E3, which are: blogs (49% usage), wikis (48% usage), and in third place are the RSS feeds (at 43% usage). Falling farther behind was social networking, as there is a 27% usage rage.

Security concerns rank as one of the biggest problems with implementing Web 2.0 tools, as 41% of managers are worried about the security risk that the tools can bring in. The other major concern among managers was the tools would result in the leaking of sensitive information, 35% of those surveyed were concerned about that.

Innovation is another concern for those participating in the implementation process. The article takes time to point out that many of these applications can be put together quickly, and often times without the knowledge of IT. This can create issues as the tools are not fully integrated within the IT environment and increase IT managements concerns for security.

Next Step in Enterprise 2.0 looks to Prediction Markets

The current tools used for enterprise 2.0 are blogs and wikis. As reported in the New York Times on April 16th, there is a new tool coming about: Prediction Markets.

A prediction market is a new web 2.0 tool that allows members in the company to bid on future events occurring. With a fake currency, they bid on the event they actually think will happen, and the person closest to the real outcome wins a small prize, such as an IPod. Companies now using this approach: Intercontinental Hotels, GE, Hewlett Packard, and Best Buy.

This new innovative product can help corporations see what can happen in the future. In the article they discuss how workers at Best Buy participated in this, betting on whether or not their first store in China would open early. Most participates bid no, and so Best Buy was able to prepare themselves financially when the store didn’t actually open on time.

This new, innovative enterprise 2.0 service is gradually catching on in the mainstream markets. Best Buy plans to expand the bidding process to more of its employees for other future events and efforts. So how can this help your company? The possibilities seem widespread. It will lead to collaboration among employees that you can directly measure against and help executives in their forecasts and planning. Of course, just as with other enterprise 2.0 tools, it's value depends on creating the optimal experience that gives participants a chance to feel they have a direct impact and can truly provide insight and feedback on future event. But when all of this is considered predictive markets can be a powerful tool could be an even more powerful tool with direct results to the bottom line.

IT Budgets are growing…An Enterprise Nightmare?

The IT dept has long been restricting adoption of Web 2.0 technology and applications such as social networking, corporate blogs, and wikis in the enterprise. According to this latest post on ZdNet, IT budgets in the U.S. are expected to grow 2.3% over last year’s budget. This could lead to an enterprise disaster if it is used to regulate and restrict access.

Instead, the IT dept should re-assess its focus on the following:

1. Help manage CMS systems within the organization to aid collaboration between different teams.

2. Invest in new security measures within enterprise 2.0 applications to help ensure data is not compromised, instead of wiping out web 2.0 technology completely.

3. Monitoring usage of social networking sites, to make sure that it is used for “business purposes”.

A growing budget for IT doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad thing. It all depends on how they decide to allocate their money. IT can go two ways on this one…What are your organization’s future IT concerns?

The Fear of the Unknown

At The Content Economy, they recently posted about the fear that accompanied emails when they first came into existence in enterprises. Back then, bosses feared that productivity would be lost when employees spent all day emailing their family and friends. But, now, we see a common oversaturation of emails. And we have to ask ourselves if that is the best way to communicate through out the enterprise.

So much of what we focus on in this blog could be a great alternative, such as: blogs, wikis, instant messaging, web conferencing and social software. These also bring up worries and concerns about improper use of these technologies. We ignore what these tools could be used for. As the Content Economy points out, what would have happened if bosses feared employees writing poems when the word processor first came out?

Eight Essential Components for Wiki Adoption

Earlier this week, Andrew McAfee and Dan Tapscott presented some of the key elements to adapting a wiki in the enterprise. Thy were summed up on this post at Wiki Patterns.

1. Tools are intuitive and easy to use – these are tools that are easy to use, this should be understood by the employees.
2. Tools are egalitarian and freeform – these tools are free to use and an outlet for work.
3. Borders seem appropriate to users – people will naturally understand the content that needs to be shared on the site, so the wealth of relevant information will be huge.
4. Patient and dedicated evangelists exist -- Experts are out there to help you easily
adapt your wiki.
5. Effort has official and unofficial support from the top – Senior management will show their consideration by funding and understanding. Also, when they start contributing to the wiki.
6. Slack exists in the workweek -- Allow this time during the week for your employees to contribute to your wiki.
7. Top management accepts lateralization – Pure public content is being created by everyone, and it’s not edited first. It’s pure, whole valuable information being put out there for all your employees to gain a better understanding of work processes in your company.
8. There are lots of young people – This generation knows how to use the technology provided by the new age of internet and they won’t be afraid to use it. They’ll fully adopt the idea of the corporate wiki.

Wikis in the workplace: Corporate Examples

In a recent post by Stewart Mader, he gives seven examples of companies currently successfully using wikis in their workplace.

He starts off by stating when he enters into a company to help them begin building a wiki, he notices that many times there are already mini wikis in place around different departments of the organization.

Then, he gives us a list of seven companies that are successfully using wikis already.

They are:
1. SAP
2. Pixar
3. Sun Microsystems
4. Red Ant
5. Sony Ericcson
6. Carbon 5
7. IBM

Many executives are scared, but these seven companies have overcome the fear of Enterprise 2.0 and started to use it to their advantage. Now will your company take the next step?

Keep your employees on board: Uncap the power of Enterprise 2.0

A recent story in the CIO takes an in-depth look at how enterprises in the UK are dealing with social networks in the work place and also how to harness their power and use it to recruit a better workforce.

The first point the article makes is that it should be a company’s priority to attract and keep the brightest young workers. How is this to be done? Have the best internal systems by embracing web 2.0 also known as blogs, wikis and social networks. The problem a company has with fully embracing allowing employees to access this: over 233 million hours are lost a month because employees are not working. This leaves a company with two options: go with the flow and hope employees will see what they can do or harness the technology and ban employees from accessing it at work. Gartner embraced the new technology which has led to what they call a high performance workplace. They looked at the matter from a staff standpoint.

They have two very different internal departments that see the benefits of this technology. The HR department sees it as a way to recruit, manage, motivate and retain the best work force. IT sees it as a way to provide the best people in the work force with the best tools so that these employees can perform to their highest potential.

With all the best employees working together, many opportunities appear. Since collaboration can happen between two people that never meet, as well as people that span a continent, innovation is more likely to occur.

The new workforce expects this technology to be available in the workplace. If your company can’t provide it for them, they will find another workplace that they feel is better suited for their lifestyle. This leads to the problem of retention. If you retain your staff, they can use to fully utilize all the Web 2.0 tools that you provide for them. So, if you find high performance people, and use the capabilities of Web 2.0 to encourage them to stay at your company, then it is possible to have a highly collaborative workplace that uses this technology for the growth of you enterprise.

Happy Birthday Wikipedia!

The web page giant that has quite possibly contributed to the knowledge of on or the most important Enterprise 2.0 tools turns 7. That’s right, Wikipedia publically launched on January 15, 2001. This article at ReadWriteWeb fills us in on a little of the history of this web giant.So let’s look at the numbers. The English version (the original) has 2,174,371 articles, is the 9th most popular site on the Internet, and has 6 side projects (Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikinews, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity).


WikiCharts allows one to see the top 100 viewed Wikipedia pages, and the most popular thing is actually viewing Wikipedia define itself. Wikirange is also another popular tool which monitors the most edited entries over the past 24 hours, as of January 16, 2008, that would be MacBook Air.

This website just goes to show how valuable information is that can be kept up to date constantly with details that can be mind blowing. Just imagine what a wiki for your organization could do, no matter whether it was the history of your organization or it was the current processes of how things work in your company.