The Recession-Ready Wiki

Last week, I co-hosted a webinar with Aberdeen. The title of the presentation was: The Recession-Ready Wiki: Surviving the Economic Storm through Sales Collaboration and Knowledge Management. It is now available as a replay link on the eTouch site.

At its base form, it was a discussion about how Enterprise 2.0 collaboration and knowledge management tools can benefit sales organizations in selling more effectively in these challenging times. The statistics and findings presented by Alex Jefferies, senior research associate at Aberdeen Group, were pulled from two recent reports he published – Sales 2.0: Social Media for Knowledge Management and Sales Collaboration published September 2008, and Sales Intelligence: The Secret to Sales Nirvana, which he will publish at the end of January.

Alex says: “The recent challenges in the economic landscape have necessitated the urgent search for tools that immediately and effectively deliver a positive return on investments. Enterprise 2.0 tools present an evolutionary approach to improve the efficiency of processes and productivity of your workforce in these times.”

In his presentation, Alex pointed out that in these difficult economic times, there’s an increased need for better and more accessible sales intelligence and that companies can stay ahead by worker smarter, not necessarily harder. These are two driving forces behind the movement towards the use of wikis in the enterprise.

He also spent some time talking about what the best-in-class, or most successful companies in their fields, are doing and how they’re differentiating themselves in the market. More often than not, this includes embracing new technologies like enterprise wikis to push forward.

The webinar provides a lot of useful information, and I recommend you listen to it. You can also download the Sales 2.0 report. It’s worth the time. And if you have any questions about it, contact me.

Here's to 2009

The holiday season has quickly passed us by. It never seems to go on long enough, does it? The weather has been crazy, the economy is in flux; yet people took time out to appreciate family, friends and enjoy themselves. That's what I love about the holidays.

Now it's back to the grind. And there's much to be optimistic about -- a new year and new beginnings. But let me focus on business.

The Enterprise 2.0 marketplace is burgeoning. Early adopters are realizing returns on their investments, and more companies are catching on to the potential of wikis and other software solutions for collaboration and knowledge management challenges. Think these types of solutions aren't going mainstream? Charlie Rose of PBS aired an interview last week with Léo Apotheker, co-CEO and a member of the Executive Board of SAP AG, and Andrew Mcafee of the Technology and Operations Management Unit at Harvard Business School about enterprise software. I read about it first on Stewart Mader's blog.

The interview stressed about enterprise software solutions can help corporations manage fragmented technology systems, departments to better manage the company and lead the company to greater success. Oliver Marks of ZDnet also wrote about the interview. He wrote: "This TV appearance is a fascinating indication of how much more seriously Enterprise 2.0 is being taken in the current economic predicament." It's a really interesting interview and something we've been talking about recently as well. It's definitely worth a watch.

2009 has the potential to be a defining year for social software - a year in which wikis, blogs, and plugins, etc. will become part of mainstream technology conversations. And, it brings with it the promise of solving collaboration woes across industries.

I'll toast to that.