SamePage scores another touchdown!

Ovum recently published an enterprise 2.0 report, and it includes eTouch SamePage as a leading vendor. The report, entitled “Enterprise Collaboration 2.0: Connecting with the Global Opportunity” identifies the trends and market opportunities of enterprise collaboration and outlines some positive ideas for the future of the market. The best part - SamePage is included as a 'top specialist vendor.'

In the report summary, analyst Rhonda Ascierto writes:

“The market opportunity for enterprise collaboration is relatively immature within the broader spectrum of enterprise software. Despite factors that are inhibiting its adoption, the widespread use of enterprise collaboration seems inevitable and the potential upside for end-user organizations and vendors is substantial.”

The report also analyzes the market drivers and inhibitors that are driving demand for Enterprise Collaboration 2.0; details the future technology evolution of the enterprise collaboration and includes analysis of how software delivery models are shaping the market; and outlines go-to-market strategies of enterprise collaboration vendors.

You can read the full summary report at Datamonitor.com.

Don't Ignore Email Vulnerabilites; There's a Better Way

42% of Best-in-Class companies reduced lost productivity attibutable to email by more than 20%

42% of Best-in-Class companies reduced help-desk time and the cost to remediate email related infections by more than 20%

65% of Best-in-Class companies reduced the volume of spam reaching user inboxes by more than 20%

These stats are courtesy of a June 2009 Aberdeen Group report on safe email. The focus of the report was to highlight the strategies best-in-class companies put in place in order to create an effective email security strategy, but I think there’s a lot more here if we just look a little deeper.

The report supports many of the ideas put forward by enterprise 2.0 companies about the many ways in which email is failing companies. That’s not to say email doesn’t have it’s valuable place in business. It does. But it can no longer be the end all, be all for business communications.

In the report, Analyst Carol Baroudi writes: “Well-financed email threat creators persist in propagating ever more sophisticated and potentially lethal attacks through the estimated 62 trillion spam messages sent last year……Add the rising value of sensitive data in a desperate market, and we have a set of trends that all point to critical reasons organizations cannot ignore their email vulnerabilities.”

Enterprise wikis are a valuable tool for businesses collaboration and knowledge management needs. A deployed wiki should have enterprise-grade security features that protect all of its information. When choosing a wiki to deploy, this is a tremendous benefit of deployed or SaaS products versus open source. Certainly, enterprise wikis can offer a safer environment for internal collaboration and sharing.

Follow us on Twitter @samepagewiki.

Gil Yehuda's Got it Right

Why wikis should be a standard workplace tool, writes Gil Yehuda in a recent blog post. No question mark; this is a statement of fact. Right on, Gil!

A former Forrester analyst who covered the Enterprise 2.0 space, Gil discovered intranet wikis in late 2002. In this blog post, he writes a strong, detailed argument about the value of wikis to companies. He cites a study he participated in while at Forrester and explains that, in the Enterprise 2.0 sphere, wikis "were the lead dog in the race." He writes:

"My conclusions from years of managing and implementing wikis, as well as peer-reviewed published research that I conducted, tells me that wikis are the strong play of Enterprise 2.0. Put it together with a profile capability (the foundation of social networking tools), and you are armed to start reshaping the intranet. Of course, it’s never the weapon that wins the war, but you want to make sure you have the right gear."

An important takeaway here is that wikis and blogs and other Enterprise 2.0 tools won't instantaneously transform your business (though you will accrue gains faster than most, if not all other, software tools). These tools equip you to better handle the flow of information and develop an environment that fosters collaboration and creativity in a secure location. A wiki is only as good as the people who use it and the information that goes into it. But when someone who researches and studies these kinds of things declares: Wikis should be a standard workplace tool, I'd sure as heck listen.


Are you following SamePage on Twitter yet? @samepagewiki

A World of Wikis

Late last week, I was putting the finishing touches on speaking proposals for the Web 2.0 Expo NYC and was brainstorming ideas around 'the world is a wiki.' And then I read about Frost & Sullivan's new report, and I realized 'the world wants a wiki!'


Frost & Sullivan recently published Web 2.0 Technologies in the Recession-hit Europe as a Solution for Small and Medium Businesses.

Research Analyst Iwona Petruczynik said: "In Europe, there is a common misconception that a true deliverable is measured in how many kilograms of paper one produces and hands over to a client. This belief is hindering the adoption of Web 2.0 solutions, as more end products are being delivered in the form of a wiki or a blog."

However, businesses are seeking new ways to stay productive while significantly cutting costs with the help of Web 2.0 solutions, according to the press release. "From lower-cost versions of enterprise applications, to utilising cloud computing, 'crowd sourcing' business owners are taking advantage of what Web 2.0 has to offer."

As they well should.

It's a cry being heard 'round the world: we're cutting back, but be more productive. Yikes! A scary proposition. But that's the magic of innovative technological solutions. They remedy the problem.

Petruczynik explains: "Web 2.0 solutions may be part of the cure for the recessionary headache that many European businesses are now experiencing; social networking sites, wikis, and blogs are just some of the more well-known examples of Web 2.0 technologies that can play an important role here. These solutions are becoming more prevalent in the European small and medium businesses (SMBs) arena, especially at a time like this, when workers are being forced to do more with less."

I echo that thought without reservation.

Content is King

Alex Jefferies, senior research associate at Aberdeen Group, explains the ‘why’ behind wikis:

“The guiding philosophy behind a wiki is really quite simple: content is king. In other words, the benefit derived from an enterprise wiki depends greatly on the amount of information contributed by users."

The most successful organizations are the ones who are able to spark a high degree of employee adoption. The result of such adoption ranges from a dynamic glossary of company-specific terminology to a forum for new employee ideas. In fact, many organizations are using wikis as a training platform, one where they can centralize FAQs and best practices for use in the onboarding process. The multitude of uses has led the majority (59%) of best-in-class companies to either leverage, or plan to leverage, internal wikis.”

The key findings of Alex’s recent Sales 2.0 report show a correlation between companies that utilize wikis as part of a sales program and improving sales. But what we also know is that a wiki is only as valuable as the content employees put in there.

Not sure what to put on your corporate wiki? According to Stewart Mader, wiki consultant and blogger, “A wiki can be especially useful for commonly needed information, like FAQ, guidelines, HR or purchasing policies.” He gives more details in a recent article.

So go forth and populate your company’s wiki!

Aberdeen on Sales 2.0

Aberdeen Group just released a Sales 2.0 report: Social Media for Knowledge Management and Sales Collaboration.

The crux of the study is examining how companies are and have the potential to shorten sales cycles and increase productivity by utilizing Web 2.0 tools.

The timing for data like this is impeccable. The US economy is going through tough times, and companies need to proactively sell more to survive and compete in these trying times. Cost-effective tools and technological advancements become that much more valuable during difficult economic periods.

According to the report, 45% of 210 companies surveyed that use social media within both the sales and marketing departments experience year-over-year improvement in lead qualification rates.

“The pressure to increase top-line revenue growth (63%) and improve overall sales productivity (60%) were identified by survey respondents as the top two pressures causing organizations to focus resources on the organizational capabilities and technology enablers use to improve sales performance,” it says in the executive summary.

It’s a good sign for enterprise wikis. Wikis are a cost-effective technology solution to collaboration and knowledge management challenges.

“As sales managers search for effective ways to manage their teams outside the traditional avenues of meetings and emails, wikis allow for project and team collaboration around a certain account or opportunity.”

There are a lot of interesting numbers and concepts expressed in this Aberdeen report that I plan to revisit. For example, Aberdeen’s report stresses how crucial it to the success of an enterprise social media / Sales 2.0 initiative to have the support of senior management. Download the report today.

From Email’s Cold, Hard Grasp

In the United States, more than $650 billion a year in productivity is lost because of unnecessary interruptions, predominately mundane matters, according to Basex. The firm says that a big chunk of that cost comes from the time it takes people to recover from an interruption and get back to work.

And that doesn’t even say anything about time wasted from spam and junk emails, ‘thank you’ emails, BCC emails you got ‘just in case,’ because Rob is trying to cover his back and so on. Email has a strong grasp on us; there’s no denying it. And there’s no denying its value in many business instances.

In a recent article in the NY Times, Luis Suarez, a self-proclaimed social computing evangelist with IBM wrote: I Freed Myself From E-Mail’s Grip. “I quickly realized that the more messages you answer, the more messages you generate in return,” he wrote.

And millions silently nodded their heads in agreement.

Luis is focusing on using other, new technologies to increase productivity. He’s talking about creating an online environment that fosters collaboration allows people to reclaim their productivity. He’s not spouting ideas that you should stop emailing your mother in South Africa. He’s simply saying, see what else is out there and see if you can shift your communications to other tools.

And maybe, just maybe, the professional masses will find that email is not always the best solution.

"Enterprise Social Networking is Inevitable"

Wainhouse Research recently released Volume 1 of The Enterprise Social Networking Landscape report. The basis of the findings? Enterprise social networking is inevitable. It's a $200 million market with some well-established players, as well as a number of small start-ups.

Researcher David Dines wrote about it on his Enterprise Social Networking blog. He purports that, just like email and instant messaging, employees are going to use social networking tools, no matter what, "so management might as well give them the tools, so they have some input." Dines predicts the business will be $2 billion in 5 years, growing at a rate of approximately 40% annually.

In the executive summary viewable at Wainhouse.com, it says: "SN [social networking] has core functionality that enables companies to streamline internal business processes like collaboration, data capture, data search and finding experts. Additionally, SN can enhance external communications by providing more avenues and a higher level of interaction with customers, partners and shareholders."

I like the tune they are singing in this report. Dines is reporting on benefits of enterprise SN tools that we've been shouting about from the rooftops for years. (What? You didn't hear us?! Sorry, we'll shout louder!)

In fact, if you read up about tools like enterprise wikis, the reported advantages are consistent across industry and geographical lines. Forward-thinking companies around the world are benefiting every day from improved collaboration and knowledge management. If you ask me, every other company is just missing the boat.