The research found that 42% of middle managers surveyed said they are actively engaged in the enterprise software selection process and 41% said no one a cared about their views.  They want to talk with vendors about their offerings.  Asked to list obstacles to their involvement, 24% expect that IT people will be against their software ideas, 23% expect senior management to oppose them, 22% said they need a sold business case and 14% said it is hard find information about the software. Only 21% did not see any obstacles and expect that their software suggestions will be accepted. 

Their advice to vendors is enhance the role that middle managers play in the selection process by providing clear descriptions of the functions of their products, more training materials directed at business professional and make the relationship the software and their more explicit.

How do they get information on software now? The respondents said that 24% comes from industry news, 20% from their IT department, 12% from friends, 2% from social media. They largest category of responses came from the 38% who said they did not have such information.

In a related but different question, when asked about where they go to get software information, 52% said they search on the Web, 33% said they talk to their IT department, 16% said they talk directly to vendors, and 21% said they were not interested.

In another related question about their preferred ways to gather information from vendors, the largest category was the 38% who said they do not bother because they do not have purchasing authority. The next in line at about 20% each was phone, email and reading web sites. Only 4% said that never ask vendors because they do not trust them.

This tells me that that middle mangers are somewhat involved in software decisions and some would like to be more involvd and others do not seem to care.  Without a baseline from prior years, it is hard to tell if this role is increasing due to the changing market factors.  I do know that many enterprise 2.0 software firms are trying the ╥seed and expand╙ strategy. They make a very low entry point and then hope to grow the numbers. A future study would benefit from also looking at the price of software purchases as a variable.  I do think they are asking an interesting question and would like to see more work here.

Comments

The report indicated that though most enterprises have long-term plans to continue using Office, alternative productivity tools will remain in the mix by leveraging the tools employees access for do-it-yourself technologies, such as those through mobile devices and the cloud. These evolving productivity tools will help enterprises transform to a fit-to-purpose approach to productivity, establishing the foundation for the next wave of productivity that’s focused on aligning tools with employee needs. In the words of the report, “The next wave of productivity will see today’s innovations dissolve into expected features, creating integrated touch points for content-related activities tailored to fit a business purpose or workforce segment.”

They pointed out that the recent recession has driven interest in free or low-cost alternatives to Microsoft Office and has slowed upgrade plans. In the past year OpenOffice.org has seen a modest uptake by enterprises and is now supported by nearly 10% of the organizations Forrester surveyed. Similarly, cloud-based email from providers like Google is finding traction as a lower-cost alternative to Exchange. I covered the email wars recently (see: Email Wars Heat Up in the Cloud). Google’e move caused Microsoft to drop its prices.

Another factor is the growing interest business process integration and automation, another topic I have discussed here (see for example: Building Enterprise 2.0 into the Product Development Process). As enterprises increasingly use collaboration platforms like SharePoint and the best of breed players, they will (or should) increasingly seek to integrate business content and processes in an effort to move from simple content storage to content workflows. I see this as what needs to be done to really make use of the enterprise 2.0 approach and tools. In a similar way, the only successful KM efforts were aligned to work processes.

There is much more in the report and I found it very useful.  For example, the majority of people surveyed as a background for the report viewed alternatives to Microsoft Office as complementary, rather than replacements. In this light, many tools, including Microsoft Office 2010, are adding social computing capabilities. Other tools such as those from Google, IBM, and Novell are moving in the same direction. 

Comments

Marc wrote about how this practice makes sense for more efficient use of services inside the enterprise and I agree. He also noted that today’s collaborative tool sets can facilitate these internal marketplaces. Enterprises would have to modify their cost structure and accounting to facilitate these exchanges but that should not be too hard.

However, making people aware of the services and arranging for micro-efforts and the associated micro-accounting would have potentially difficult with older technologies. However, just as on the Web with Web 2.0 sites, the transparency within enterprise 2.0 platforms can also make these internal micro-markets for service exchange more accessible.

Now that the right tools are available the remaining factor to make this work is the ability to understand the value of these exchanges and the vision to implement them. In a market where employees are asked to continuously do more with less, an internal services market for under-utilized resources should appeal to most executives. Thanks to Marc for making the suggestion. You should check out his blog as there are a lot of other good ideas there. 

Comments

Intuit Brainstorm actually the result of a project that started during unstructured time. It is designed to better manage innovation efforts begun within organizations of 500 or more employees to properly leverage its crowd sourcing capabilities. Intuit has supported employee innovation for some time. Until Intuit Brainstorm, they used a structured database to track the efforts. This tool was not fully used and, when used, it was updated only about a third of time.

Intuit Brainstorm was designed by employees operating as innovators, rather than as a tool for senior management to track the status of efforts. It was designed to meet the needs of these innovators. It enables innovators to build a team, get help, grow ideas, and collaborate. As a byproduct, it also tracks the status of efforts, but in a more accurate manner than its predecessor because of the increased participation. Here is a screen shot of the home page.

Currently, there are over 200 ideas preparing for release, representing a wide variety of innovations for both internal use and the marketplace. There are over 4,000 comments on these ideas. One of the new products is ViewMyPaycCheck which allows the employees of small businesses to view the details behind their pay check in the same detailed manner often offered by large organizations with comprehensive HR systems. This new product was developed in three months through Brainstorm.

Within Brainstorm there is an auto-generated activity stream where anyone can see comments on ideas in the pipeline in a real time manner. You start the process by adding you idea by adding your idea through a lightweight submission form. Brainstorm will instantly show related ideas to your idea upon submission. So you can connect with those team members.

Team members can edit the details of a registered idea and others can provide comments. These comments can start a threaded conversation. Contributors take these comments seriously and Brainstorm added the ability to edit comments at the request of users. You can recruit people and people can also request to join a team. The system also makes recommendations on who might be a best fit for the team based on their activity and tags within the system. You can place help wanted ads asking for help. You can also get updates on the tags you follow.

They added Outlook integration to allow you to reach out to other employees and bring them into the Intuit Brainstorm network. The system also indentifies top contributors to provide recognition. You can see the most active, top commentors, and top taggers over the last week, last month or all time. Adding this “leaderboard” increased comments by thirty percent. Brainstorm increased participation in innovation by 500% and increased ideation by 1,000% at Intuit. Here is a sample leaderboard.

Senior executives are able to track the thousands of ideas by such factors as: area, most active, and other statistics. There is also a comprehensive search. You can find both ideas and people who might be able to help with them. I think this is a great tool and I look forward to its arrival on the marketplace. Innovation needs more than creativity to grow. This tool was built from the innovator’s perspective by innovators so it has the right focus and approach.

Comments

Google appears to want to be a player in the future of television. They must believe that video distribution to TVs and mobile devices will evolve to be more like the Web, Google favorite playground. So far in video, however, Google has admitted that profit from YouTube has proven more elusive than originally thought.

YouTube has been slow to get off the computer and penetrate home television, where the real money is. Working with microprocessor designer MIPS Technologies, Google has already positioned Android for set-top deployment, while also raising its involvement with addressable TV advertising with pioneer Visible World.

Andrew Frank outlines three things benefits form the On2 purchase:

First, Google gets some important embedded infrastructure through On2. It brings a wealth of online video distributor relationships who have been licensing its technology for some time, including Adobe, whose Flash platform continues to power the majority of online video Sun Microsystems, whose JavaFX platform is embedded in the infrastructure of most standard advanced television platforms.

Second, it’s important to Google’s home television goals that the public Internet continues to develop into a reliable way to deliver high-definition video to TVs in a “net-neutral” way: in other words, without cable, satellite, or IPTV telcos charging for quality of service or otherwise limiting video access to screens.

Third, as Google moves to balance control of video standards among companies that include Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe, ownership of On2 gives them leverage to ensure its platforms (Android, Chrome browser, Chrome OS, Apps and Gears) include native video capabilities that are independent of control or licensing by any of its potential competitors.

See Frank’s post for more details. We look forward to see where this goes. A player like Google can certainly make things happen.

Comments

One of the initial players in the enterprise microsharing space is Socialcast who we have covered before (see Enterprise Microsharing Tools Comparison, Socialcast Brings Twitter Style Functionality into the Enterprise, and Socialcast Adds iPhone and Gmail Plug-ins).

Last week Socialcast released a priority broadcast message capability that gives designated participants authority to elevate need-to-know messages to a community in real time, separating this information from regular traffic and denoting its importance. Broadcast messages appear prominently in the network, highlighted with unique colors and triggering instant email alerts of a new broadcast.

This new capability was developed from customer comments and it is has been tested in over thirty companies. Organizations have broadcast emergency alerts, quarterly messages from the President, key promotions and congratulatory announcements; intermittent bursts relevant to everyone receiving the signal.

We like the idea of bringing important messages inside the microsharing environment because it reaches people where they are, through mobile devices and desktops alike. It also demonstrates leadership support and purposeful engagement with the tools. If done right, it may entice more participation from people throughout the organization because conversation happens around the broadcast within the stream, rather than in corporate email silos.

For this feature to influence the culture in 2.0 ways, it should be the content, not the sender’s seniority, that determines when this capability is used. It should broadcast important messages from those holding the corporate vision alongside those outside the executive suite. People at many organizational levels are privy to news that affects everyone and they should have the power to use it.
Someone in the transportation department may learn of a roadway accident that will have an impact on everyone leaving work. An ad hoc speaker in the auditorium could be announced by someone in community relations or PR. An imminent change to social media policy could be shared by a member of the peer council no matter their department. They each have a real reason to use the system and should have a mechanism to do so. At the same time, it should not be over used or it will appear as spam.

Senior leaders should likewise demonstrate they are listening to what employees are saying. They should also post regular messages, not only broadcasts, showing they want to be part of the ongoing conversation with all levels of the enterprise. This will demonstrate real engagement and allow them to gain the full benefit of these tools.

Broadcasting is one examples of an emergent capability not appropriate for use on the broader web, that can work well within the enterprise. This feature would not even be relevant to Twitter because users have access to only one follower pool and the system depends on its distributed nature. In an enterprise you can have layers of participation and parallel systems for those who aren’t microsharing yet. This feature can provide a greater sense of community within the enterprise as all levels of the organization can now respond to breaking broadcasted news through a channel that provides greater collaboration than email. We look forward to more innovations like this one within the market as it adapts to the needs of the enterprise.

This post was co-written with Marcia Conner. It first appeared on Pistachio Consulting’s Touchbase blog. Marcia is an enterprise learning and social media analyst and a 20-year veteran of the enterprise technology market. She writes the Fast Company Learn at All Levels blog and is Senior Enterprise Strategist for Pistachio Consulting. I have great respect for Pistachio and we have started to do some work together in the enterprise space.

Comments

Stewart goes on to quote Jive’s Gia Lyons, “Most of what we do could be done with almost any other social software tool, but naturally, we only make ourselves available to Jive customers.” Stewart then writes in reaction, “If most of what they do could be done with other software, then why only make themselves available to Jive customers? After all, isn’t professional services an even larger source of revenue than the software? That’s how SharePoint works. Microsoft sells a basic infrastructure on which lots of 3rd party consultants build and customize tools that meet each company╒s needs.”

I would certainly agree with the last statement about revenue sources. When I was part of a large consulting firm we usually figured the system integration costs were about 3 to 5 times the software costs.

Stewart then implies that software vendors will not have the objectivity of third party implementers who can use a variety of tools. Having been on all sides of this equation, I think that this is a complex issue. I like Jon Mell‘s comment to the post, “I think it╒s slightly more subtle than vendors only trying to validate the sale. If a customer invests in Jive (or any other product) there is a mutual interest in making sure the solution works. If that also happens to validate the vendor╒s sale it doesn╒t automatically mean it╒s wrong and not in the customer╒s best interests.”

I would add that just because the professional services firm is independent of the software vendors, there are many alliances that will provide motivation similar to an internal services provider. I was the alliance sponsor for three portal software firms while working for a large consulting firm. There were several tiers of alliances and many wide-ranging agreements and motivations. In the end you have to be able to trust your service provider, whether they are inside or outside the official software provider and trust that there is full disclosure

I have also seen situations where the software firm’s internal people partner with a third party developer. This happen on a knowledge management project I led in the early 2000s. It worked well because the internal experts gave us their unique knowledge to help with the implementation and served as a connection to the software firm. The project was a success and promoted by both the very large software firm and the consulting firm, my employer.

In the 80s I was involved in another situation were it made sense to use the software firm’s service providers. My employer was a firm that sold CBT software. This firm originally thought that over half their income would come from selling software. I was the head of customer development and we only used our tools. What actually happen was that selling software accounted for only about 10% of our revenue. The rest came from custom development, as our clients would rather pay us to use our tools than purchase the tool themselves. Now software for learning development is a bit of a specialized case, as you need expertise in creating good learning materials as well as using the software.

In the end the answer to the question is not yes or no but the old “it depends.” There are many issues to making enterprise 2.0 work (see McKinsey on Making Enterprise 2.0 Work is Reminder of Process Centric KM in Early 90s) and I think there is a role for software firms to engage in this implementation for everyone╒s success.

What has been your experience on this issue?

Comments