Category: Technology trends

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Forrester predicts dramatic growth in Enterprise 2.0

by  on  in Reinventing the enterprise, Technology trends

Forrester Research predicts that by 2013, the global Enterprise 2.0 will be $4.6 Billion. The biggest growth and share will be in social networking.

One example of an enterprise social network is NewsGator’s SocialSites. It built on top of Microsoft SharePoint and provides a dynamic space for communities, expertise location and “work streaming”. Two screenshots from NewsGator Profile Page and Community Site.

A few of the key messages from the report are:

  • that consumer Web 2.0 products are not long-term solutions for enterprises, especially free or ad-supported services
  • IT continues to be the gatekeeper preventing Web 2.0 applications from being leveraged in the enterprise
  • business areas are asking for these tools and bypassing IT if they find a service that will help them in some area
  • IT is worried about scalability of these applications
  • IT budgets are primarily focused on maintaining legacy applications with little capacity to look at these new tools
  • younger employees growing up with these tools will want something similar when they arrive at your doorstep to work
  • IT is concerned about the security of Web 2.0 applications
  • major enterprise players (IBM, Microsoft, etc) will make Enterprise 2.0 a feature of their monolithic solutions
  • major growth in the enterprise will not happen until the baby boomers retire from the executive ranks
  • social networking tools that allow customer interaction, profiles and participation in discussions and blogs will receive significant investment

Read a good review of the Forrester report.

Enterprise 2.0 Spending - Forrester

Enterprise 2.0 Spending - Forrester

Via ReadWriteWeb.com

Save our email systems! – Delete the Reply-to-All Button

by  on  in Reinventing the enterprise, Technology trends

One of the frustrating problems most organizations have is full, cluttered email inboxes. It’s not just email from dubious sources, but email(s) from your co-workers and subordinates. These full inboxes lead to many problems:

  • constantly expanding email servers
  • wasted time navigating through email topics that you are not really that interested in anymore
  • missing the emails that are really important
  • way to much material left around when you really wished it had been deleted

Folio reports via Techcrunch that Neilsen company has deleted the Reply-to-All Button from Outlook. Check out the article for a copy of their corporate email announcing the change.

reply-to-all not available

reply-to-all not available

I think this is a great idea. Way to often staff just keep on hitting Reply-to-All when it is not necessary. If you need to inform, discuss or include many people, they should use one of many collaborative tools available for that purpose.

Blogs for customers, not companies

by  on  in In the news, Personal development, Reinventing the enterprise, Technology trends

Blogs are written for all sorts of reasons. Most are a labour of love viewed by a small band of readers. Corporate blogs on the other hand can and should have a much broader reach. They can be an important part of supporting an organization’s brand.

So what makes a successful corporate blog?

First and foremost is the realization that a blog is for the customer’s benefit – not for the company’s. It’s important to remember readers will only come back if there is value for them. That’s right value for them. Not value for the company. Readers don’t care if you are providing a nice, efficient press release site.

Rick Burnes reminds us of the real reason for corporate blogs in a posting at ZDNet.

Blogs for Customers, Not About Companies

If you look closely at the search results you pull up every day (and even some of the Alltop corporate blogs), you’ll see that an alternative model of corporate blogging is beginning to emerge. Instead of writing about themselves, companies are following the lead of the other company blog in the Technorati Top 100 — Signal vs. Noise. They’re beginning to create content that’s not about their business, but that appeals to their buyer personas.

Whole Foods is going beyond their blog and publishing recipes. American Express is publishing small-business advice. Indium Corporation is writing about thermal interface materials.

In each of these cases, the company is attracting a broad audience by focusing on content that is interesting to the demographic it serves rather than content about the products it sells.

Every company that is considering starting a corporate blog should spend some thinking about how this effort can support their brand. Otherwise publishing the blog could be wasted effort.

Work is an event, not a place

by  on  in Reinventing the enterprise, Technology trends

Our world is changing. Cost pressures, low employee engagement scores and green initiatives are on the radar of most organizations. It’s time for enterprises to take a serious look at teleworking.

This podcast from Podtech.net and sponsored by Verizon Business provides a strong case to include a teleworking intiative in your 2009 planning. Some key points:

  • to be effective, teleworking needs to be supported right from the top of the organization
  • productivity and engagement scores can go up when employees are given the option to telework
  • IT needs to step up and deliver reliable, secure and cost effective solutions during 2009
  • technologies such as collaboration, unified communications and mobile access need to be part of the mix
  • cost savings are available from implementing a hoteling workstation environment
  • reduction in carbon footprint and congestion show corporate responsibility to staff and customers
  • HR needs to provide training to managers who will have staff working from remote locations

Source: Podtech.net

Sponsored by Verizon