Cracking the carpool conundrum with new collaboration software

March 25, 2010, 8:50am PDT | Length: 00:02:22
Getting employees to rideshare has always been a difficult challenge for businesses. But Paul McGrath, CEO of Ridespring may have an answer. He’s developed web-based software that organizes carpooling into a one-stop destination, so users can share their daily commute information across the organization more easily. The software also has incentives built-in, so the more employees carpool the more likely they are to be rewarded for ridesharing.

Transcript

Cracking the carpool conundrum with new collaboration software

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>> Getting employees to carpool has always been considered one of the holy grails for businesses. Ride sharing encourages employee comradery and cuts down on carbon emissions, but having an organized plan is a challenge for many companies.

>> It's a set up database for carpools internally can be very difficult and often if they do set one up the participation is very low.

>> Paul McGrath is the CEO of RideSring, a technology company that's built software to organize ride sharing into a one stop destination.

>> We've enabled people to share their commuting information across the organization very easily.

>> One of RideSpring's successes is at business software SAP. SAP started using RideSpring in 2008, and now 30% of the employees in the Silicon Valley office have signed up. Larry Morgan oversees the program at the company.

>> It saves them time, it saves them fuel, it saves them bridge tolls, they get to ride in the carpool lanes, so there's a quality of work life balance that's also part of the program.

>> Here's how the software works. Say you want to find a ride. Select your worksite and your home destination and do a search. A list of drivers appears telling you when they plan to arrive and leave from work. If it matches your schedule, sign up. If instead you decide to offer a ride, you can fill out a form entering data and describing when you're available to help out. The software also has incentives built in so the more employees carpool the more likely they are to be rewarded for ride sharing.

>> They can win prizes every single month, and they can also see what they're saving, it's simply gas savings and carbon savings.

>> The rewards are also available to employees who may decide to walk, bike, or use public transit to get to SAP.

>> We've transformed the daily commute into a fun, competitive game between co-workers and that really drives interest and participation.

>> RideSpring, making it easier to carpool to work, all the while reducing your carbon footprint during the commute hours. For ZDNET I'm Sumi Das.

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==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====

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RE: Cracking the carpool conundrum with new collaboration software
Linux Love 26th Jun
or more frequently republish someone else?s - online. The blind leading the blind syndrome is exactly
Great they must include users service that can track and analyze their individual commuting cost savings and commuting education news and efficiency. k l
The Enterprise 2.0 Conference moved venue this year to the huge Hynes Conference Center in the heart of Boston, as befits the central role the movement?s thinking and technologies is now playing in the enterprise world, particularly in marketing messaging.

From a technology vendor perspective improving user interface look and feel and incorporating 2.0 web components and mobile are increasingly table stakes (at the dawn of HTML5 browsers are we going straight to 5.0 next?), and the business attributes and values of social graphs and activity streams are key sales components.
Enterprise 2.0 has always been a closely knit community but at this event in particular it felt as though it needed a testosterone shot or two. As I discussed in my previous post, the enterprise world is predominantly a sea of cubicles, Windows XP, old browsers and Blackberries which is struggling with arteriosclerosis of the veins due to clogging with email and documents. I feel for the Enterprise 2.0 sales people who have to prove the value of their products (and frequently set up ?pilot program? tire kicking exercises) often against both waves of indifference and confusion about what the business value actually is.
In my professional life working on collaboration strategy inside enterprises I often get my feet held
to the fire with accusations this is all ?fru fru dust? or ?fluffy? from senior execs, typically the result of
their having done some due diligence about all this ?stuff?, and after wading through voluminous
verbiage online and skimming various books (which are all to often aggregations of various blog
posts and company case histories which have made the most sense to the author) they don?t find
anything focused or pragmatic enough to action against. There is now plenty of excellent software
that is fit for purpose - the challenge is finding what that purpose actually is in the pragmatic context
I sometimes have to swim upstream with clients in order to first flush out any bum information they
think all this ?stuff? is about and then get them dialed in to where the value is for them in the context
of their business goals, and sometimes this includes software vendor philosophy and hyperbole. The
volume of debate, crystal ball gazing, conceptualizing, buzz words and names creation is website from the sky ipad bag blog of best sutudeg community the modern education news and increasing
Overcoming this reality to unlock the power of greater collaboration, cross pollination and information sharing inside companies is fundamentally about instilling trust, sense of purpose and ?what?s in it for me? within individuals - the enabling technologies are the easy part. There are always more than enough tenured folks in business and universities with the time and platform to publish their opinions of what they see happening out there, but there?s a world of difference between observations and actually doing, as the grumblers around the water cooler or on their coffee break will tell you? and it?s those folks you?ve ultimately got to empower with Enterprise 2.0 if anything new is going to ipad bag blog of best sutudeg community the modern education news and country happen.
or more frequently republish someone else?s - online. The blind leading the blind syndrome is exactly
of their specific business.

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