Collaboration and Content Strategies Blog

A Twitter Traffic Example: Gartner Buys Burton Group

Blogger: Guy Creese

The recent purchase of Burton Group by Gartner (purchased on December 30, announced on January 5) offers the perfect opportunity to watch how an announcement travels through Twitter. Below is a chart from Trendistic that shows the rocket ride of tweets that occurred Tuesday morning (the search is for tweets that included both "Gartner" and "Burton Group"):

 

You'll notice that the height of tweeting was around 9 AM ET, when the deal was announced; it then took five hours to subside to a steady, low buzz.

Using Enterprise 2.0 to “Get Work Done”

Blogger: Larry Cannell

Two weeks ago, just before I took the week of Thanksgiving off, Greg Lloyd of Traction Software published a blog post that describes a vision for Enterprise 2.0 that is close to my own view.

First off, I really like how Lloyd re-connects Enterprise 2.0 with the “ubiquitous web” (which I interpret to be a less buzz-worthy name for “Web 2.0”). In addition, he notes that the differences between the two are rooted in the “shared purpose” of people working together in enterprises (emphasis added by me):

The scale shift that ubiquitous Web tech enables as well as bottom up participation in E2.0 initiatives are both necessary - but neither are sufficient to distinguish "Enterprise 2.0" from the Web we see and use every day outside work. I believe the difference lies in the shared purpose which drives people to create or join an enterprise and work together over time, along with the need to manage use of scarce resources to a shared end.

…

In saying "2.0 modifies how the Enterprise works, not the technology," I take the rhetorical position that the technology which underlies E2.0 - specifically the ubiquitous Web as a platform - is a necessary enabler which provides the first chance to practically apply many of the principals of open work, distributed work and effective collaboration over time that Drucker and Engelbart have advocated for the past fifty years.

I particularly like how Lloyd brings “work” into the Enterprise 2.0 discussion. In most conversations about Enterprise 2.0, “work” is (at best) mentioned in passing and rarely gets the attention it deserves.

Later in the post, Lloyd addresses how organizations can “intentionally use it [Enterprise 2.0] to improve their own ability to get work done.” Bingo! To me, this is the major difference between opportunities enabled by Web and Enterprise 2.0.

A work-based perspective is also one that is understandable to both line of business organizations and IT since it is not simply rooted in technology, nor is it caught up in the nuances of social networks, emergent collaboration, or necessary organizational changes (which, no doubt, can all play a role in improving how work is done).

This Enterprise 2.0 perspective is about bringing to bear the resources a company has to help people make the best decisions and improving the quality of their collective work. This is language even a pragmatic business manager can understand.

But I also believe that the most likely path to large scale adoption and use of this enabling technology will come from small to mid size groups within an organization who intentionally use it to improve their own ability to get work done - rather than in direct pursuit of emergent benefits. They can (and by mandate should) open the direct and indirect record of their work to others who then may become better aware of what their enterprise plans to do, is doing or has done - and who knows what.

Traction Software, Inc. | Blog1185: Peter Drucker and Enterprise 2.0 | Drucker Centenary

At future Enterprise 2.0 Conferences I would like to see more coverage of this work-based perspective. In addition to bringing a broader audience to the discussion (from both the business and IT), it also provides an opportunity to discuss other aspects of IT and the “ubiquitous web,” beyond social tools, that are equally important but have mostly been left out of the E2.0 discussions. In particular, I am interested in exploring how corporate “data” (bill of materials, sales, supply chain information, other application data, as well as social content such as discussions, profiles, and so forth) can be leveraged to improve how work is collectively done.

By the way, this “working better” perspective is the basis of the Burton Group Online Workplace Framework. If you haven’t done so already, I invite you to take a look at it.

Looking at Both Sides of the Enterprise 2.0 Debate

Blogger: Larry Cannell

By any measure, the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, recently held in San Francisco, was a huge success. As an Advisory Board member and someone who has been involved with the conference since 2004 (when it was first created and originally called the Collaborative Technologies Conference), I find this personally gratifying. In particular, I am thrilled to see the 2.0 Adoption Council take an active role (tip of the hat to Susan Scrupski for kick starting the council).

However, this conference also made clear that the “Enterprise 2.0” meme is going through an identity crisis of sorts. Oliver Marks, a fellow Advisory Board member, laments in a blog he posted after the conference:

“in the world of the enterprise - or small and medium sized businesses - it’s still hard to deliver an understandable and memorable Enterprise 2.0 elevator pitch”

In other words, “Enterprise 2.0” is ambiguous (and, therefore, so is its value proposition). However, perhaps the biggest problem is how Enterprise 2.0 is being defined (by both detractors and supporters) under the assumption that corporations must fundamentally change how they are organized before these technologies can be of value.

Questions about Enterprise 2.0 were the subject of a keynote discussion among panelists from the 2.0 Adoption Council entitled “Is Enterprise 2.0 a Crock?” A blog by the same title posted by Dennis Howlett precipitated this debate several weeks earlier, in which he said: “Therein lies the Big Lie. Enterprise 2.0 pre-supposes that you can upend hierarchies for the benefit of all.”

Miko Matsumura astutely compared this to the “SOA is Dead” argument and said this could be a healthy debate to have. However, he too expressed skepticism after hearing panelists saying that the way “business is organized is fundamentally changing,” which supports Howlett’s interpretation of what Enterprise 2.0 “mavens” are saying.

In addition, Tammy Erickson’s comments during her keynote seem to support this everything-has-to-change approach as well when she said: “the organizational designs within our corporations are wrong for 2.0 technology.” Matsumura and Howlett are correct to be skeptical. However, this doesn’t mean Enterprise 2.0 is a crock. In my opinion, a company’s organization may not be optimal for 2.0 technology, but these solutions can still deliver value (and possibly be contributing factors leading to change). But, to claim that companies need to fundamentally change to gain value from using these technologies is as absurd as calling it a crock.

Three years ago when we were first planning the 2007 conference, renaming the “Collaborative Technology Conference” to the “Enterprise 2.0 Conference” was the right move. It gave the conference a jolt of new energy, emphasized that the technology pieces were only part of what is necessary to apply Web 2.0 to companies, and broadened the conversation to a wider audience. But is it clear now that we need to re-examine the “Enterprise 2.0” label and either continue using it (but do a better job of describing it in ways meaningful to business managers) or replace it with something else.

To be blunt, the opportunities enabled by Enterprise 2.0 technologies are worth fighting over, but the label is not. During one of the better keynotes, Andrew McAfee (who originally coined the term “Enterprise 2.0”) said we should stop using the word “social” in selling Enterprise 2.0 since it “has more negative connotations to a busy pragmatic manager.” I agree, but I also suggest not using the words “Enterprise 2.0” when talking with the same pragmatic managers. We should not fool ourselves into thinking we are talking like "the business" when we say "Enterprise 2.0.” It is an insider’s term. Few if any of these pragmatic managers use the word "enterprise" in their everyday vocabulary (unless they are fans of Star Trek).

An underlying challenge with the adoption of any information technology (but is particularly relevant when applying Web 2.0 to companies) is the huge gap between line of business organizations and IT. The business side of companies tends to abdicate information technology decision-making responsibility to IT (treating it like some kind of magic that just happens) and IT tends to focus on making its job of maintaining the technology easier (leaving the “soft” stuff for the business to address). Successful companies address this gap by having both sides work together to apply information technology in ways that significantly improve the business. Any talk of upending or revolutionizing the organization is counterproductive for the people working in the trenches trying to get these two sides working together to improve the effectiveness of their company’s workforce.

The “Enterprise 2.0” label does nothing to address this and can even expose a wider gap if it is overused. If we want to start engaging business managers in this discussion, we need to stop talking about upending hierarchies and start talking in terms both the business and IT can get behind.

Does Google Have Enough Patience For Wave?

Blogger: Larry Cannell

Last week at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference I attended both the Google Wave keynote and break-out sessions (the keynote on the main stage was a shortened version of the full break-out). In each session, Greg D'Alesandre briefly introduced Google Wave and then speakers from Novell, SAP, and ThoughtWorks took turns showing us how their products integrate with Wave.

The Google Wave breakout session took place on the last day of the conference and was in the last time slot (east-coasters leaving San Francisco Wednesday night or early Thursday morning missed out). Nevertheless, the room was filled with a standing room-only crowd, eager to learn more.

Unfortunately, my sense was that attendees were generally underwhelmed. I left the session thinking that Wave’s honeymoon with the public may be just about over. As you would expect, most everyone in the room was unfamiliar with the Novell, SAP, and ThoughtWorks products being demonstrated. So it was especially difficult for the speakers to get their points across in the few minutes they were allotted because they had to introduce their products (which have unique capabilities all their own) while also explaining how they integrate with Google Wave. The problem: very few people understand what the heck Google Wave is.

For a collaboration and content management geek, such as me, Google Wave represents a huge potential. But, for most everyone else, ehhh…what’s the big deal? Of course, Google has its many fans and any product introduced with this much fanfare comes with high expectations. However, I have yet to hear a good elevator pitch for Google Wave.

Google is not alone. Many vendors and open source projects have a hard time explaining their collaboration products. The problem is people have no frame of reference from which to work. By comparison, introducing people to e-mail was relatively easy. It is an electronic form of mail, something that has been around for a long time. In the United States, mail has been around at least as long as the Pony Express (over 150 years).

So, Google is learning what collaboration vendors (and many IT strategists) have known for years: selling collaboration technologies is difficult. I am not saying that Google Wave will fail. However, I do not expect Wave to be as successful as GMail, for example, for a long time (if ever).

Perhaps one day this may not be an issue. Maybe Wave, or some other product, becomes synonymous with Internet-based collaboration and people can reference it in the normal course of a conversation. However, that day is a long way away. In the meantime, will Google’s management have enough patience for Wave to have an impact?

Telebriefing: Leveraging Relationships and Managing Identity – Two Sides of the Social Networking Coin

Blogger: Mike Gotta

Next week, Alice Wang and I will be presenting our research and consulting findings on the intersect social media and social networking has with identity and security for Burton Group clients. This topic has been a major source of client inquires over the past few months as organizations are dealing with employee use of social media tools like Twitter as well as internal tools associated with "Enterprise 2.0". If you are a Burton Group client, I believe you will find this presentation very informative. If you are not a Burton Group client, Alice and I will be presenting this topic again on Thursday, November 5 at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in San Francisco. For those attending that conference, you can find details on the event web site. If you are not attending - it's still not too late to register!

Telebriefing Description:

Use of social networking to improve information sharing and community-building will transform how organizations think about identity and its relation to collaboration and social media strategies. Social network sites, micro-blogging, activity streams, blogs, and wikis enable employees to construct their own identities via profiles and social graphs. As employee participate and contribute in these social networking environments, internally or externally, they also establish social roles and community reputations. This TeleBriefing by analyst Mike Gotta and consultant Alice Wang will examine the risks and benefits of more open and transparent information sharing on collaboration and identity strategies.

Presented by: Alice Wang and Mike Gotta

Dates:

Tuesday, October 27, 2009
12:00 p.m. EDT/9:00 a.m. PDT/16:00 UTC GMT/17:00 CET
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
12:00 p.m. EDT/9:00 a.m. PDT/16:00 UTC GMT/17:00 CET

Register:

• Online (for Burton Group clients)

Microsoft Social Computing Overview

Blogger: Mike Gotta

Notes from Christian Finn, Director, Social Computing

• 13 sessions in "social track"
• Microsoft design point is to co-mingle structured collaboration tools alongside social computing tools - it's unrealistic to think of social computing disconnected from collaborations strategies
• Back to information workers and productivity ... find knowledge, share ideas, work in teams, feel valued, manage projects, build= a network and use content
• Long-term ROI of social computing is helping information workers feel valued (e.g., via comments from peers, ratings, etc)
• Microsoft also thinks of the IT Pro ... control costs, provide solutions, maintain security, do more with less, ensure compliance, reduce islands, etc
• This situation also causes users experience is fractured across too many tools and silos
• The challenge for IT: If you are in IT - they are asking for consumer versions of sites for internal use - but arguments raised re: compliance, security, etc.
• The challenge for the Enterprise: Connecting the dots is the challenge of the enterprise ... need to locate expertise, build community between people as a result of mergers, or onboard new employees
• Social Computing lowers the cost for sharing and organizing ... surfaces knowledge and networks (expertise) and increase employee engagement
• Pitfalls: Demographics, hierarchy, policies, culture, etc
• Microsoft believes SharePoint scales to meet as narrow or broad a view an organization has on social computing, you can use it in a very classic way - no MySite etc - keep with basic document libraries, forums, workspaces - or - you can use blogs, wikis, profiles, etc - all in one platform.
• Customer examples: Accenture (extensive use of MySite, social distance), skill attributes used for staffing, etc), Electronic Arts (very strong from a user experience and aesthetic viewpoint). Looks more like Facebook, supports skins for different product areas, etc. British Telecom used podcasting kit for just-in-time learning. Supports knowledge retention (interviews, user-generated videos on best practices).
• SharePointM social journey began with MySite 2003 (disagree that Microsoft had any clue of social computing in 2003 though - some recasting history here)
• Demo
  • MySite: much cleaner UI, less form-like, softer blending of UI elements, typical stuff (name, presence, phone, etc), can use Business Connectivity Services to bring in HR data etc, free-form text for entry of ad-hoc information, redesign of middle section of MySite - tabs for organization, colleagues, tags, memberships etc) - supported by privacy settings.
  • Note Board emulates Facebook Wall type interface - can have Note Board on documents, sites, not just "wall". can have list of comments ala discussion stream
  • Personal tag cloud - when clicked will find people and artifacts
  • Tag Profile: way to aggregate all the people who are using a tag inside the organization... can "follow" tag - do a people search and locate all people associated with that tag
  • MyNetwork is a running newsfeed - stream, river of news model - activity stream comes close to social messaging (Twitter) but not sure I would go that far - seems more "FriendFeed" like.
  • Follow a tag results in event being posted into news stream - way to discover people and artifacts - passive signal model
  • Colleagues ... social graph, Facebook friends, can organize colleagues into groups with privacy controls at group level
  • Filters for newsfeed
  • Organization: org browser is an overlay directory to find people and their relationship to the organization ... not sure who someone works for, where they report in the org structure - Silverlight and HTML version. See digest, direct reports, etc and then can link to full profile - can control delegation
  • Content: similar to 2007 version - can share documents, etc.
  • Status message shows up in news feed Note: wonder how this works with OCS presence status? Opportunity for integration but doubt that there is any linkage right now. Visa-versa - can OCS/Communicator status be sent to news feed - maybe too much noise (on phone, busy) but maybe not
  • Blogs: Much improved UI ... actually looks like a blog ... more Ajax type UI for posting ... maybe not as great as Wordpress or other tools but likely good enough for many situations ... believe you can use Live Writer as well (better choice in my opinion for authoring)
  • Note: Wonder if there is a blogs central type catalog - does not sound like it.
  • Video streaming built into SP2010 ... natively stream of video up to 2GB from store ... ratings supported ... Silverlight player
  • Wikis: two varieties ... team site wiki:  as people move from documents to web pages as medium of information exchange, need to support this within team sites - rich text editor ... bar was really low, previous version of wiki really was not a wiki so this implementation is a significant advancement ... oddly, don't use wiki term. Also have Enterprise Wiki (different) - more like Wikipedia - build on publishing model ... page publishing and categorizing of pages (then why call it a Wiki?) ... access controls supported and versioning ... can chose to have workflow aroudn wiki as well (ex: HR policies database). Under the cover all of this are in lists so blogs, wikis can have workflow attached.
  • Enterprise Wiki surface is a publishing template so you can put web parts and other artifacts like video.
  • Note: people will have to keep close track of team wiki vs. enterprise wiki - different capabilities and different implementations! Will not be able to take a team wiki and promote it to an enterprise wiki for example.
  • Records management and social computing: can apply rules (disposition etc) to blogs, wikis, etc.
  • Note: I still do not believe there are sufficient data loss controls, audit logs, etc here - Msft needs to prove that the support for security, identity and privacy needs much more thoroughly beyond demoware.
  • No iPhone application - too bad :)
• Customization: REST, JSON, ATOM, etc.

SharePoint 2009 Conference: Morning Keynotes

Blogger: Mike Gotta

Notes from Steve Ballmer keynote...

• Vision: seamless experiences across your life
• SharePoint is at the center of intranet, Internet, etc
• Public Beta in November
• Synergies with SharePoint Workspace (Groove recast for SharePoint with improved offline support)
• Targeting 1H2010 for general release (note: my guess is May)
• What is SharePoint? Collaboration, analytics, social networking, content management, portal, workflow, etc etc
• Want to someday bring SharePoint to consumer market
• New user experience for SP2010 - ribbon and other office UI elements
• Consolidate workloads and costs on a single platform (old argument but more so with this release)
• Adding sandbox environment
• Additional standards support (REST, JSON, ATOM) Note: Encouraging widespread development of third-party applications (e.g., Adobe AIR) that front-end SP2010 via these standards might be one of the most significant advancements in the release and Microsoft doesn't push this concept strongly enough - look at all the AIR apps around other social tools for instance
• Demo
  • Business Connectivity Services (next generation of business data catalog)
  • Many more templates within Visual Studio specific to SharePoint
  • Sandbox solution:enable developers to create applications that can be throttled by IT ... isolate application ...
• Note: so far, 45 minutes into keynote, not a single message that would be considered a message to a "business decision maker" - interesting ... pitching to developers and support people in audience, no focus on business solutions, processes, etc (few side comments but nothing in-depth and compelling)
• Cloud, discussion on hybrid split between SP online and SP on-premises
• Important: Still no parity still between SP2010 in cloud and on-premises - better, but not 100%
• Note: When will cloud/SaaS be the primary target environment for SP releases? Seems like on-premises is the target environment creating this lag in terms of parity
• Internet-facing SP: SP in cloud for intranet different than customer-facing Internet
• First real business scenario: Kraft example, consolidated 200 web sites. Volvo also using SP externally for Internet. Not clear what percentage though in these examples are SP - are they 100% run on SP or other platforms are also leveraged
• Demo Internet Facing
  • SharePoint Server For Internet Sites
  • FAST Search Server for Internet Business
• Intranet 2010 Products
  • SharePoint Foundation (successor to WSS)
  • SharePoint Server
  • Fast Search Server
  • SharePoint Online
• Question on long elapsed-time between releases: Basically, SteveB reply is that it has taken them this long (to the 2010 release) to get to the point where the foundation is at a point where they can release application-level functionality faster. But no insight as to what people should expect in the future - is the next release 2013? No guidance so I'm not sure anyone should believe that cycle times are going to get any better until there is proof...
• Question on social computing: SteveB rightly points out the need for social computing to address security and identity aspects of related applications and that IT organizations play a key role to help mitigate risks but no specific insight as to how data loss, identity and security issues are handling in 2010 social computing. Hopefully more to come in this space...

Notes from Jeff Teper keynote

• SharePoint 2010: the business collaboration platform for the enterprise and the web
• Sites: single infrastructure for intranets, extranets and Internet sites
• "Replumbing" of UI, adding ribbon, etc
• SharePoint and Groove user experience consistent now - SharePoint Workspace, offline support, better mobile support
• Collaboration: wiki, blog, tags, etc etc all improved
• Social tagging was a significant focus area
• MySite - some rewriting of history on how MySite was positioned originally. Back circa 2003, MySite was an orphan feature that no one seemed at Microsoft was able to clearly position. Was never intended to play the role it is being positioned for today re: social computing.
• Profiles - revamping search and finding people
• Single metadata store for tags, taxonomy etc
• Search - query on experience, people search, KM aspects, social graph, org chart, etc
• Social Computing Demo
  • Activity feed, tags, tag clouds, recent blog posts, etc
  • Can see aggregation of other connections re: activities, etc
  • Ratings fro documents
  • Expertise location: people search ... displays people and profile information, can view recent content from person, authored content, browser where person is in organizational chart
  • Note board (like FB wall) on profile page

OpenSocial In The Enterprise

Blogger: Mike Gotta

During the Enterprise 2.0 event in Boston last year, I moderated a discussion between IBM and Oracle on the topic of portals and its relation to Enterprise 2.0. Somewhere during the discussion, I wondered aloud how OpenSocial should be compared/contrasted and put into perspective within the enterprise as the most viable widget/gadget effort around. I'm happy to see a session on the topic for the San Francisco event on Wednesday morning hosted by Chris Schalk, Developer Advocate at Google. Panelists include: Adina Levin, Vice President of Products & Co-founder, Socialtext, Benjamin Mestrallet, CEO, Exo Platform, David Johnson, Web 2.0 Senior Architect, IBM and Jay Simons, VP Marketing, Atlassian.

Developers considering social applications should track ongoing work to evolve OpenSocial so that it can be used within the Enterprise. You can get involved by following the OpenSocial blog, the OpenSocial Wiki, or the OpenSocial Forum. You should also be aware of the Apache Project SocialSite effort - since it builds on Shindig - I am surprised it is not mentioned more by those involved in OpenSocial.

We need to start designing and implementing social networking platforms that have capabilities to span internal and external audiences. While initiatives that started off in the consumer market may not have the necessary identity, security, and other necessary services - alternatives within the enterprise are often not viable for consumer environments - so we are left somewhere in the middle - with no one particularly happy. Given overall consumerization of IT trends, it seems to me at least, that it's more viable (in the social computing realm) to start with efforts like OpenSocial and ActivityStrea.ms and evolve them for the enterprise than the other way around.

However, to be a viable approach - more enterprise developers need to participate (not vendors - developers from end-user organizations). And to be fair - developers from the consumer side of the market, need to embrace the need for robust permission models, audit, and other capabilities that are critically important to many organizations - especially if they are in regulated industries. I'm sometimes amazed at the naivete of some consumer vendors when it comes to some of the more serious and complex requirements for identity, security, compliance, etc. that are fundamental within the enterprise.

Below, is a relevant post from Adina on enterprise opensocial:

The conversation centered on changes to OpenSocial that will make it a better fit for the enterprise.

* OpenSocial is planning to incorporate the ActivityStrea.ms standard to represent activity. The standard has a well-developed draft, and has already been implemented by Facebook, MySpace, Windows Live, and Opera. An important next step there is a JSON representation of ActivityStrea.ms content. The Enterprise group agreed to have representation in ActivityStrea.ms (disclosure, that's Ryan Boyd of Google and me).

* The definition of "friend" was updated to make it clear that it supported relationship definitions that make sense in the enterprise. The language about the "friend" representation the standard covered the symmetrical relationships that are common in consumer applications such as FaceBook and MySpace, and business applications that deal with loose ties, such as LinkedIn. But the symmetric friend model makes less sense within the enterprise. What does it mean to ask to be friends with a corporate VP, or for your boss to ack to be friends with you? The asymmetric model used by Twitter, where each individual chooses people to follow, to manage their own attention. It wasn't clear to the folk at the meeting - including the people from Google, that the Friend definition could actually be used to cover the asymmetric friending suitable in the enterprise. We updated the definition to make it clear that asymmetric friend lists were acceptable within the standard.

* Single Signon and Security. Security and trust models are not well agreed upon or understood by the vendors. There was lack of shared understanding about how or whether to use OAuth, and how authentication and single signon might work with a multi-layer model including gadget contents, container, application server, and corporate directories. In particular, there was a lot of discomfort with the assumption that the container (server side) could hold tokens for widgets to use to access external apps on behalf of a user. One person from Cisco said that they could basically not do that at all. The next step is for the conversation to continue on the OpenSocial mailing list.

* Intergadget communication. There was a fair amount of interest in intergadget communication, in particular the relationship between work done by the OpenAjax alliance and Google's work on pubsub. Mark Weitzel of IBM has the ball to submitting a spec proposal on this topic.

* Other technical development. There are ongoing development efforts with technologies such as Google secure data connect (which can be used for tunneling through firewalls), Shindig (the opensource server and client reference implementation of OpenSocial), and Caja (sandboxed JavaScript). The next step is for Chris Schalk of Google to arrange webinars on SDC, Shindig, and Caja development.

* Web standards are gaining adoption in the enterprise, and more information is needed for enterprise developers about the benefits and options available to them. The group took on a task to write a White Paper on OpenSocial in the Enterprise (Disclosure: Gabe Wachob is one of the authors)

SocialText

Social Analytics: Another Front For Business Intelligence

Blogger: Mike Gotta

While my core coverage is social computing (e.g., social media, social networking) - related domains that take up an increasing number of my research and client interaction cycles are: identity, analytics, and mobility. So I found this news release by Socialcast today interesting on many fronts - and yet I'm also left looking for more from the market in general when it comes to social analytics.

On the one hand - the need for comprehensive analytics when it comes to social activities is very real. Social messaging (micro-blogging) and activity streams are rich sources of information on social structure and relations. While I'm not a big fan of the "tacit knowledge" argument (it tends to me over-simplified and oversold - especially attempts to measure it) - the aggregation and correlation of interaction patterns is nevertheless very insightful. Often within large enterprises, the ability to make latent connections visible is helpful. Assessing interaction and conversation patterns (as well as the anti-patterns in regards to lurkers, peripheral participants) can be very insightful. The data can also become an important import to broader social network analysis tools. So overall, I very much like this move by Socialcast - it ups the baseline expectations by customers of vendors in this space. I would expect other players to consider similar moves - although they may partner with vendors like SAP who provide social analytics.

On the other hand - what Socialcast delivers is only one piece of a broader framework - people's interactions will span social messaging tools - conversations splinter and become fragmented across other communication tools and collaborative workspaces. So while this is a solid first move by Socialcast - the question will be whether the analytical framework becomes more broad. Analytics may be the key to the long-term success of the company as well - social messaging is something that will become a feature within larger platforms from IBM and Microsoft.

Finally - I do like the term "social business intelligence" - but for it to become widely adopted - other vendors need to leverage the concept - I could see someone like Attensity Group, Attensa's StreamServer (the company seems to be recasting itself), SAP, etc leveraging the idea for instance.

Socialcast Introduces Social Business Intelligence®: The First Suite of Real-Time Enterprise Microblogging Analytics

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Socialcast, a leading provider of Enterprise microblogging software, today announced a complete refresh of its platform to coincide with the launch of Social Business Intelligence®, a proprietary suite of analytics that provides measurable insight into the microblogging activity occurring inside a company’s Socialcast network. With the goal of measuring the value of tacit knowledge management and informal social activity, Social Business Intelligence® provides real-time feedback and actionable insights into the employees, topics and conversations that users are finding important and that spur active participation. The interface update streamlines the product’s capabilities, making usage more intuitive and measurement of activity straightforward.

.....

HIGHLIGHTS AND FEATURES

• Organizational Network Analysis tools to identify the informal connections between individuals and groups
• Posting, commenting, and “liking” activity over time, offering insight into conversation initiation and response behaviors
• Lurking and listening activity analysis, surfacing the invisible facets of network adoption
• Interactivity patterns between users, showing proactive and reactive relationships with others in their social graph
• Moments of transition from passive to active usage, allowing companies to find people and topics that ignite conversation
• Interactive visualization of all community discussions, surfacing the most active messages based on user interaction, popular posting times and dates
• Highlights the most popular messages and topics, allowing administrators to quickly visit important conversations as identified by the workforce

Socialcast Introduces Social Business Intelligence®: The First Suite of Real-Time Enterprise Microblogging Analytics

Social Media: Aggressive vs. Deceptive Use

Blogger: Mike Gotta

I thought these two articles published by Knowledge@Wharton on advertising and marketing stood out when read together. The first article (see below), while focused on advertising, does raise the thought of how social media can be included as a key component to marketing strategies. The second article (also included below) examines the risks of aggressive forms of promotion that ultimately prove to be deceptive or otherwise unacceptable.

Why is this important? 

Enthusiasts often point out the need for authenticity and transparency when it comes to effective use of social media. That viewpoint may seem naive to some, based on a simplistic view of how the world works (after all, the skeptic would believe that ultimately, the point of marketing is to improve brand, sell products, etc). However, there is a true cautionary tale here. Strategists exploring use of social media do indeed need to be aware of its risks and the dynamic (re: unsettled and undefined) regulatory environment under which they may be operating. 

I was recently talking to a client in a regulated industry who is closely tracking what the FDA is doing which is outlined in the third article below. If you are an FDA regulated industry, the last article citation below should be of direct interest.

Bottom Line: Social media is no longer about marketing and should not be owned by marketing groups. Social media initiatives need to be governed as other strategic initiatives that cut across many business areas - including legal, audit, compliance, and so on. IT organizations need to be much more closely involved with social media initiatives. Security and identity issues are becoming more apparent. The situation is not about "saying no" to such efforts but making sure that decision-makers are aware of the risks and that proper risk mitigation efforts are undertaken as the business moves forward with social media strategies.

REFERENCES:   

First Article

Will the Future of Advertising Be a Blend of Old and New Media? - Knowledge@Wharton

It hasn't caught on yet in the U.S., but a global ad campaign for Unilever's army of laundry detergents -- sold in Asia as Omo, in France as Skip, and by other names around the planet -- hailing that "Dirt is Good," is considered by experts to be a perfect example of a new path for marketing in the 21^st century.

The marketing push merges memorable images of children splashing in mud with a customer-engaging social message -- "every child has a right to play and explore." Some claim the ad helped push Singapore to increase recess time at its academics-heavy, stress-inducing schools.

The early success of Unilever's advertising strategy is exactly the type of information that company marketing executives and ad agencies need to discuss as they struggle to develop new ideas to handle the cataclysmic changes in technology and communications -- from Tivo to Twitter -- that have altered the ways companies interact with customers. But until now, there has been surprisingly little coordinated effort to re-invent the science of advertising or to rewrite the basic manual of what advertising strategies don't work and which ones do -- and under what set of circumstances.

Will the Future of Advertising Be a Blend of Old and New Media? - Knowledge@Wharton

Second Article

Value Destruction: The Cost to Companies That Engage in Deceptive Marketing - Knowledge@Wharton

On September 2, Pfizer agreed to pay $2.3 billion to settle civil and criminal allegations that it violated federal rules governing drug sales. The pharmaceutical manufacturer was charged with illegally promoting its pain-killer Bextra and three other medications by offering doctors speaking fees and subsidized trips to resorts, among other benefits. The settlement was the largest ever levied against a U.S. company.

While the amount of the settlement is significant, the indirect costs to the company may be even higher over time in terms of lost shareholder value.

A new research paper now puts a price on the less tangible costs to a company's value that can arise when marketing efforts backfire. Titled "Regulatory Exposure of Deceptive Marketing and Its Impact on Firm Value," the paper examines declines in financial market value experienced by drug companies that have been the target of deceptive marketing citations by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The paper's authors are Diana C. Robertson, a Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor; Sundar Bharadwaj, a marketing professor at Emory University's Goizueta Business School and currently a visiting professor of marketing at Wharton; and Martha Myslinski Tipton, a marketing professor at Singapore Management University.

Value Destruction: The Cost to Companies That Engage in Deceptive Marketing - Knowledge@Wharton

Third Article

Public Hearing on Promotion of FDA-Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media Tools

National Transportation Safety Board Conference Center

429 L’Enfant Plaza, SW., Washington DC, 20594

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will hold a public hearing to provide an opportunity for broad public participation and comment on promotion of FDA-regulated medical products (including prescription drugs for humans and animals, prescription biologics, and medical devices) using the Internet and social media tools.  FDA is seeking participation in the public hearing and written comments from all interested parties, including, but not limited to, consumers, patients, caregivers, health care professionals, patient groups, Internet vendors, advertising agencies, and the regulated industry.  This meeting and written comments are intended to help guide FDA in making policy decisions on the promotion of human and animal prescription drugs and biologics and medical devices using the Internet and social media tools.  FDA is seeking input on a number of specific questions but is interested in any other pertinent information participants in the hearing would like to share.

Public Hearing on Promotion of FDA-Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media Tools