In late April of this year Fred Wilson posed the question: Is “Social Enterprise Software” An Oxymoron?
Fred’s post resulted in string of 52 thoughtful and important comments. We decided to pluck a few snippets from the Disqus comment thread and re-post them here on the Workstreamer blog. The thoughts below represent a tremendous cross-section of thought surrounding the viability of ‘social software’ at work.*
I spoke to a group of corporate comm[unication] heads, and asked them if employees can read blogs, Facebook, and other places that customers might give them feedback. “No, most of that is blocked” they said. Then I asked if employees are allowed to have their own blackberries or iPhones. Sure. Well, then they’re not blocked at all. They’re just on smaller screens. – Howard Greenstein
As an enterprise that has evaluated a few of these offerings, it’s clear that there is a huge skills gap in terms of selling to and servicing enterprise customers. You may think Web 2.0 is great, but a lot of enterprisers think it’s cute. At best. - Thomas
I moderated a session at O’Reilly’s Money:Tech conference in February called “What Do Hedge Fund Managers Want?” J.P. Rangaswami had several comments on this topic the day of the conference, including the revelation that Goldman employees are using Facebook more extensively than one would think to collaborate with each other. – Cathleen Rittereiser
To place the blame on firewalls or IT security is a much lower level issue than we tend to make it. The real issue is getting top level executives to understand the tangible benefits that communicating with customers, prospects, members, partners, and employees can bring to the organization. Until we change the discussion, we are working at the wrong level of the organization to gain traction and adoption. – M Rowland
I think there’s quite an opportunity to take the Google Apps Suite, add an elegant social network with profiles, updates available on your start page, and cross linking between teams and interests to create a enterprise social software. - Kyle
The term “social” by itself is a problem since it implies external and non-work types of relationships, even though many “social” applications are primarily professional- or task-oriented in ways that are very supportive of enterprise interests. – Dennis McDonald
Enterprises are just a bunch of people trying to work together…The enterprise should not want to replicate social tools inside the firewall because the enterprise is not the owner of an individual’s relationships. - Dsheise
An enterprise activity stream for AP/AR department, for instance, could be beneficial on multiple levels. Think FriendFeed for AP/AR applications. - Raj
Somehow I doubt though that anyone marketing “enterprise class social software as service” is realizing the power of a less is more when a community already exists - Kellan
I think all future social ‘environments’ have to become more like Facebook and less like Skype, that is…. not just the social graph, but also the long tail of third party applications around it. – Vruz
I think this is a big idea, and a huge opportunity. Big idea here. – Dick Costolo
You are also very right about the enterprise to date being “awfully anti-social.” Therein lies the opportunity. – Jeff Dachis
I think the isolated business organization will give way to the community just because it is not as powerful, but will [still] fight it, unsuccessfully – Gregory
Collaboration is the big opportunity, and is probably underserved by today’s crop of applications. They tend to be task-focused (”let’s create this document together”) and not context-focused (”let’s figure out how to help this customer together.”) – Tmcmh
Shared learning streams, and peer generated, just in time knowledge is another killer enterprise application. – Alive88
There seems to be a disconnect between the needs of a large org and the needs of a person,. and the entire reason that social tools have been successful is that they fulfill the needs of the user, and nobody else - Jevon
*Please note we have tried to provide attribution when Disqus profile information was available.