Live blogging - Enterprise Social Software webinar by Radicati
Tags :Lotus Connections social networking Radicati
The guest speakers didn't make much sense at all to me for Social Software for the enterprise outside of 1
- Janine Popick, CEO of Vertical Response
- John Landau, CEO of Customer Experience at Huddle.net (UK company)
- Mike Walsh, CEO of Leverage Software
Matt Anderson of Radicati was the speaker. After 5 slides it went to Q&A with the panelists.
- Vendors that they listed included Lotus and a slew of others I did not know offered such solutions.
- The suites are what Lotus Connections offers with some added parts like Business Intelligence
- They then have specialists that work on each part of the software itself
- The market drivers were just what you know now. Make some teams and share some info then find people around them
- The market barriers are what you expect but easily overcome. Compliance (US issues), deploying new technologies
Q&A section
- What does your offering provide to set it apart from other offerings
Mike Walsh - They are trying to making it easier for the business person to make and find relationships. Taking some of the Web 2.0 items , with security and making it easier for the business worker to share information in a collaborative environment within and outside the company.
2. What was the initial pain point that caused them to look for a social networking solution for their enterprise?
Janine Popick - They have 30K small business customers with only a small number (50) of employees. So they are the customer experience side. They let the customer
3. How has business social software changed how employees share information between themselves and with customers?
Janine Popick - They have an award winning blog. Employees post more content to give them exposure. They use Leverage as their social software choice it was said. They also started a Facebook group with about 200 members giving product feedback. There is a wiki in place to post documents and share information.
4. What are some of the key factors when vendors go up against Microsoft Sharepoint in this space?
Mike Walsh - Everything is based on the needs of the users. It varies across prospects. He said Sharepoint, which is a great product, and Lotus Connections, which he was not familiar with, helps them find the right people for a specific person to assist with a project or prospect. he said Sharepoint seems to be for internal collaboration behind the firewall. he does not look as them as a competitor, but as augmentation.
Jon Landau - They are often compared to Sharepoint. The perception he finds is that is a free tool but the TCO is incredibly high for a business. It does well for internal collaboration. But the idea is to bring external clients together with the inside groups and becomes costly with Sharepoint. Kingfield is a customer of theirs, and they were looking at Sharepoint until he brought Huddle to them.
5. What were some of the critical features that your business looked for in a social software package?
Janine Popick - They found that their customers that used their service needed different feedback. So small groups of customer types are forming. They are also able to push focused product release information. Finding users "like me" on a people map and then reaching out is helping the company since they already compile a large amount of data from each customer. Live chats are helping get feedback on what features of their product are most important.
Questions from the audience....
1. What are the real benefits, like ROI. These seem like a solution looking for a problem.
Janine Popick - One of the things they did when deploying was hire someone to manage the deployment. Without someone to drive and manage this can fail. This person also participates in the social network by watching and even generating conversations. On a hard ROI front they know they are saving time on email and feedback processing. Vocal people in the communities help promote what is needed without them sending out constant user surveys.
John Landau - Huddle offers the ability to share documents and work together internally and with external partners gives a tangible ROI. If that was done by email instead, You end with multiple people looking at different versions and chasing information. Huddle has the centralized upload, sharing and work area to set approvals and tasks, etc.
Mike Walsh - They were out as a social network platform before Facebook caught on and now everyone is clamoring for this type of application. They work with 300 companies with different goals and needs. ROI might be decreasing support, increasing upsell, increasing customer loyalty, getting products to market faster by getting feedback. Microsoft, HP, Oracle, Salesforce, Time Warner, NY Times are all sample customers. Some need projects done faster and others are using it to find hidden talent in the company.
2. Were are a small software startup with 400 partners/resellers, can you describe the benefits of utilizing the software?
Mike Walsh - They do work with smaller companies to share best practices. Relationship building through the social network is a huge benefit.
John Landau - You are able to bring all these partners and resellers into one social network so you can all chat, talk working group and share information with branding and customization.
3. How does voice and real-time collaboration overlap with services such as the social networking vendors? Will you follow?
John Landau - Huddle is in a position in the next few weeks to offer integrate single sign-on ability. Web conferencing tools are also being built into the product offering.
Mike Walsh - Open architecture through widgets allows you to add features and functions even without their help. They are partnering with companies like Webex and SalesForce, or even pulling in a Skype or Webex widget. Also a GoToMeeting widget as they used in this conference.
4. Is there a listing comparing what these vendors offer in their social network offerings? (my question)
They will have a listing in the Radicati report
5. How do you deal with issues around compliance. (yada yada yada) ?
Janine Popick - She does have compliance issue it seems. They use a wiki for a lot of collaboration but will be tightening up how the information is controlled.
John Walsh - needed the question repeated. The data can be exported so it depends on the requirements of the organization. One feature they do not have is document check-in and checkout. Their solution has revisioning and tagging. How it is completed and found is up to the client, such as Wells Fargo.
John Landau - The document management system saves every version of the document as it is worked on. Their solution is geared towards compliance. You can see date and time stamps for all edits, updates, changes and new items.
6. What is the cost for trials of these softwares?
They will send that out later or go to the websites and get some free trials. Huddle and Leverage offer free trials.
Sara Radicati wrapped it up with not much fanfare but look for their report, of course
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On Thursday, September 27th, 2007 by Chris Miller
