Dion Hinchcliffe on leveraging the convergence of IT and the next generation of the Web.
Dion Hinchcliffe is an expert in information technology, business strategy, and next-generation enterprises.
The means to connect social networks and software applications together have existed for years but haven't been very open or useful enough to reach critical mass. That's been changing as OpenSocial has continued to doggedly improve and mature. The latest version has a chance to go mainstream, the question is if users will find the features compelling enough to use.
It's long been easy to connect applications together on the Web, particularly in social media. But we're only now finally starting to see real progress on moving these lessons into the enterprise. With the advent of a new customer service API that uses the lessons from the open API world, this may at long last happen, to the real benefit of end users and customers.
With social media features popping up inside existing enterprise applications combined with the crush of enterprise-ready social business platforms, figuring out how to situate social media on an intranet, in content/document management, and within functional verticals inside the has become a significant challenge. Here are some of the key issues for sorting out social media and IT strategy in today's fast moving marketplace.
While app stores have become very popular in the consumer world -- especially on mobile devices -- they haven't been as popular in the enterprise. However, newer offerings and a growing expectation by workers that app stores offer selection, convenience, and better prices is changing the landscape. IT departments now have their work cut out for them to ensure their own needs are met.
Today social media generates more information in a short period of time than was previously available in the entire world a few generations ago. Making sense of it and understanding what it means for your business will require all new technologies and techniques, including the emerging field of big data.
Enterprise social media is often touted as a more modern and capable way of communicating that is inherently more open and transparent. Yet it's the ability of these tools to keep collaborative alive and thriving over time that provides much of the value to businesses looking to retain worker knowledge, train up new hires, and get the level of reuse that they ought to from their hard-won organizational experience.
Social business is starting to get serious attention as an industry, like social media recently has in the investment community. I take a close look at where the action has been when it comes to the places Enterprise 2.0 is most likely to thrive.
The latest surveys continue to show the social computing provides real business benefits, but is it really as rosy as all that? I take a closer look at what benefits are consistently reported with Enterprise 2.0 and Social Business while looking at where the actual value lies.
For many, the giant size of today's social software suites is too much, while the simple functional focus of individual social apps isn't enough. How can enterprises best cope with this bloat vs. refinement divide? The answer partially lies in how control of IT software selection and acquisition is going to change over the next half decade.
Social media is used inside about three quarters of enterprises today. Yet is still only scratching the surface of how it can enable better communication, collaboration, and bottom-line results. Where are Enterprise 2.0 leaders coming from that are driving organizations towards success today?