Social Enterprise Software discussion buzzing last week
Across the blogosphere, the topic of “Enterprise Social Software” was hot this past week.
- Fred Wilson asks if the term itself is an oxymoron.
- Sam Lawrence makes a case here on how social software vendors, including his own Jive Software, and SocialText, Atlassian among others, could upend the incumbent enterprise vendors SAP and Oracle, while referencing this article about a recent Forrester report about these emerging collaboration vendors.
- Dennis Howlett debates Sam and makes a case here for why the incumbents will not be upended, and partially bases his argument on this viewpoint on enterprise inertia from Sig Rinde.
- Jeff Dachis of Razorfish fame raises $50mm from Austin Ventures to pursue the social networking application space within the enterprise
- Last, but not least, Oliver Marks provided a good synthesis of this set of conversations.
The buzz is great news for those of us betting on collaboration and social networking as fundamental disruptors to the traditional enterprise landscape and as fundamental enablers for the next generation of value creation from enterprises of all kinds (corporate, governmental, non-profits, and others). It means something is happening, and it surely is.
However, I feel the debate about this “Enterprise Social Software” market is being viewed through the wrong lens. It is a great set of reading, but it seems that most of the conversation can be summarized with the phrase “Where’s the beef?”. This is consistent with ongoing discussion around Enterprise 2.0 continues to swirl around the topic of the lack of repeatable case examples of ROI for wiki, blog, forum and social network applications.
The perspective that I believe is missing from all of these conversations is that the next generation of enterprise applications - Enterprise Social Applications - are not strictly about wikis, blogs, forums, etc. The emerging Enterprise Social Applications market, as discussed in the conversations listed above, should be about how those Web 2.0 capabilities (blogging, wikis, forums, social networks) are applied to applications to solve the business problems of next generation enterprises.
The problems to be solved by and emerging demand for these new applications arise from three underlying multi-decade mega trends hitting large enterprises today - Globalization, the Talent Crunch and Web 2.0. The push toward being global and acting global will force enterprises to have much more agile, open and collaborative business processes, and the applications to support those processes. The same thing is true with the talent crunch which is upon us - as boomers “retire” and the Net Generation enters the workforce, the demands for more agile, open and collaborative work processes and applications will grow dramatically. This is how the Net Generation gets work done. The fact that Web 2.0 is upon us and that wikis, blogs, forums, social networks exist enables all of this - however, these capabilities are not the specific applications which will be the next generation of enterprise applications, or Enterprise Social Applications as coined in the conversations this past week.
Further validation of Twitter as a customer experience touchpoint
These blog posts further highlight now Twitter has become a natural outlet for customer feedback as well as a relevant touchpoint.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_to_get_customer_service_via_twitter.php
http://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/2007/12/does-jamba-know.html
Below are companies which have set up Twitter Channels.
Entering the Web 2.0 Innovation Abyss
Fred Wilson put up a great post last week which generated a ton of commentary on the post itself and across the blogosphere on the topic of a ‘new path to liquidity’ for startups. Be sure to scan through the comments. Umair Haque had a supportive follow-on post as well. Fred hit on a very compelling point for me personally as a heavy user of a series of Web 2.0 applications and services which have been acquired by the likes of Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google and others only to see the services and apps stagnate in their innovative capability post-acquisition. One might say upon acqusition, these compelling products and services enter an Innovation Abyss inside their larger parent companies. At the same time, as an entrepreneur and entrepreneurial deal-maker in my current role, Fred’s post and subsequent conversation generated strong interest for me as well on the topics of paths to liquidity and the overall VC model.
I think Fred was spot-on in his post. However, it is critical to really parse what he was saying. Felix Salmon wrote a follow-up to Fred’s post on Seeking Alpha, and I believe missed the point Fred was making. Felix seemed to interpret Fred’s post to be saying he was looking for more or better liquidity opportunities for his portfolio companies in an effort to generate a higher rate of return for his fund - hence the statement about ‘greed’.
Quite the contrary, I suspect that Fred and Union Square Ventures and others like it are generating just fine RORs for their limited partners. What I believe Fred was expressing was the statement I made at the top of this post - that the acquirers are not doing justice to the innovation being funded by VCs. What Fred is looking for is a new path to liquidity which generates returns that are comparable to those he gets by selling to Google et. al., but that the targets will also do something with the innovation and keep the founders and core team behind the innovation incented to continue to build their compelling products or services, only now post-deal with more leverage and resources.
Look at a service like FolderShare. It was quite amazing what was accomplished with that service prior to the acqusition by Microsoft. What has happened since? In my opinion, the quality of the service may even be lower as part of Microsoft. How about del.icio.us, to which Fred refers. I cannot point to anything innovative since the Yahoo! deal. I still use both services, but was hoping for something positive following those deals.
In short, I do not believe Fred was asking for higher returns or even more potential acquirers - he appeared to clearly be asking for more appropriate acquirers for his innovative portfolio companies. He may make better returns if he continues to hold the stock post acquisition, but that is not the point. Also, in the absence of better options, Fred and his brethren have an obligation to maximize ROR for their limited partners and execute their fiduciary duty as board members of their portfolio companies, which will mean to continue to sell their portfolio companies in the manner in which they have been - regardless of it may end up stifling the innovation in a portfolio company. Fred appears to be pleading for better exit options for his portfolio companies to help those companies continue to deliver the customer experience gains he expects as a user of the many products and services in which he invests. I hope plea is answered with new paths to liquidity.
The post and its many responses caused me to think more about why this is happening, and I believe I have a hypothesis outlining the underlying reasons behind the situation Fred outlines relative to today’s VC model and the overall technology start-up environment. I do not think the answer for this particular issue outlined by Fred is a private liquidity market such as Opus-5 or Goldman Sachs’ GS True Market, or, while plausible in its own right, a new private exchange for accredited investors as suggested by Roger Ehrenberg. Smells like an opportunity.
I will address these reasons in a subsequent post as part of this mini series and hopefully suggest some opportunities. Like Fred’s reference to pmarca in his post, I too cannot seem to get through posts which are too long (though pmarca authors a very compelling blog). I’ve made my point here, so I’ll cover other points in the next posts in this series.
Bridging Worlds
In immersing myself in enterprise 2.0 and web 2.0 technologies and platforms … Facebook, Twitter, Texting/SMS, Wikis, Blogging, RSS, etc., while also working with those that are addicted to the traditional email/phone way of collaborating, I’m continually finding myself bridging worlds. For some of my business dealings I’m watching email and the phone, while for others I’m connected in real-time through the Web 2.0 / e2.0 collaboration technologies mentioned above. I have to say it’s very interesting watching these two worlds do business with me in very different ways at the same time. It also taxes my mobile device (Treo 750) and laptop (MacBook Pro) significantly, though both seem up to the challenge.
^ brian
Technorati Tags: e2.0, enterprise20, social media, web20
A Web 2.0 / E2.0 Paradigm shift
Listening to Dave Weinberger speak at the Enterprise 2.0 conference. One paradigm shift that seems to thread his presentation so far and is important to understanding Web 2.0 and E2.0 is that the owner of stuff (content) no longer owns its organization on the web. The users own the organization - think about Google’s page rank algorithm (every link impacts results), tagging, etc. Seems to me this is a critical point to understanding the power of Web 2.0 technologies. It may be an obvious point, especially to us deep users of Web 2.0, but it’s very important to understanding the shift.
On a somewhat related topic, at the conference I’m trying to synthesize where the true impact of E2.0 will be on the enterprise based on the presentations and content of the conference. So far (an this has been in Dave’s presentation throughout so far), the area of “knowledge management” for lack of a better term right now seems to be the most common thread - i.e. making the organization more intelligent and effective (at least the knowledge workers). I think bigger impact areas are out there, not to trivialize this area, but these other impact areas seem to not be mainstream yet.
^ brian
Technorati Tags: e2.0, enterprise20, web20
Amazing array of Office 2.0 On Demand applications
I’m sitting in the Web 2.0 Bootcamp, and they have pointed us to this site that lists all of the next generation of On Demand office applications (i.e. Office 2.0). Amazing array of choices, including recommendations.
^ brian
Google Gears and the next generation of RIAs
Google’s announcement of its Google Gears offering … on the heels of Adobe Apollo and Microsoft SilverLight … continues to accelerate the opportuntiy to enable very rich application functionality via web services based applications and in the browser. While still an intergral part of the mix, we’re already beyond just talking about Ajax apps.
Let’s review quickly the evolution of the Web from a browser / client perspective:
- Web 1.0: publishing, shopping and other commerce - make a request to a server and get something back, entire page refreshes; lots of data forms and templates
- Ajax: request / response capability within a page, without requiring entire page refreshes, also accomplished with embedded flash/actionscript within a page; Gmail among others allow us to work within a page and get frequent updates
- Google Gears et. al. - all of the above, plus use your web services apps offline and leverage local processing - can anyone say client/server? except this time the server side is the global internet and messaging is a lot easier, including private SOA enabled networks behind firewalls and security layers assuming you have the right access privileges, and the client side is a heck of a lot lighter, cheaper and standards-driven
The implications for the next generation of enterprise and consumer applications based on these new application frameworks are huge. This ZDNet article captures some important points on this next wave for web services applications.
Google, as usual, seems to be embracing an open approach, including partnering with Adobe Apollo. Microsoft, as usual, seems to be tying their framework into .NET back ends exclusively. I think we’re all going to be incredibly surprised at how fast adoption of Google docs and email will happen in the enterprise. I don’t know if I have the guts yet to trade a Google / Microsoft spread, but despite Microsoft’s diversified businesses, Office and Exchange are major franchises next to Windows, and are significantly at risk now.
My desktop world, like all others, has changed with the advent of the Web and Ajax. The majority of my desktop is now a brower window with several tabs open -
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The return of tech IPOs?
Paul Kedrosky has an interesting post predicting that 2006 is the end of the misery for venture-backed technology companies seeking an IPO exit and that 2007 will see a resurgence. It seems that he is suggesting that the supply of attractive tech equities is shrinking (or has shrunk enough), yet the demand for tech equities will remain constant or increase and the potential issuers are lacking in attractive exit options in the private market.
We know the tech IPO market will return eventually. I just do not know if the catalysts that Paul suggests are either true catalysts or are enough at this time. It is true that many new tech companies are generating meaningful revenues, and I am a firm believer that Web 2.0 does represent a fundamental value creation opportunity. I am struggling with identifying where the next set of leaders are in this new wave of value creation. Where are the standalone entities such as Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, and Google (among all of the other high-value product line staples, such as PayPal, etc.) in this new mix of prospective IPO candidates?
Reflecting back on the period of 1994-1997, I think many of us back then knew that Amazon, Yahoo, and eBay were going to be successes. Google came along later and became a verb, ensuring it’s place in line. Can you say the same about YouTube or Facebook? Maybe, but it is not as obvious in my view, unless I’m just getting to be too old.
What’s more, did we ever see the Web 1.0 leaders so actively trying to sell themselves to the highest bidder? While I suppose that with the IPO market being so dry, no alternative really exists. But if things are so great, who really cares what your valuation is or should be, and why sell now? So much private equity money is available now that if an awesome growth story exists of Google or even eBay like proportions, and that company needed capital, the private equity markets are awash in investment dollars to fuel the fire. Raise the cash, grow the business, and take it public when the time and market is right.
With all of the talk about how much FaceBook is worth and how much a bidder should pay, it seems that all may not be as great as it seems and some may be desperate to cash out before the party ends rather than just growing the thing like Google did. I don’t believe there has been as much talk about YouTube’s valuation by its insiders yet, and it may actually be the real deal. Time will tell.
I do hope Paul is right and 2007 is a resurgence of tech IPOs, even if it is just a moderate uptick (nobody is expecting a return to 1999 here). I would like to see a little more fundamental support in the prospective candidates that will fuel this return of the IPO market before getting my hopes up too high.
– brian
Writing from Ecto
Thanks to Jeff Nolan at Venture Chronicles I am writing this blog entry from Ecto. Ecto is a wonderful tool so far … I’m still in trial, but it looks like I’ll buy it. I am authoring two blogs right now. It can be a frustrating experience having to log-in to each admin console to write a post. It can also be frustrating if you have a flaky Web connection or none at all (e.g on an (Boeing) airplane).
I have created two posts from Ecto in my corporate Listening Post blog, which runs on Wordpress, and it has been a great and flexible experience. I’m now trying it here, which is (for now) a TypePad blog. So far, I recommend using this product. The trial is free and it takes only a minute or two to set up the system to connect to your blog(s). Give it a try if you are looking for an offline authoring environment.
– brian
Community thinking
As a native (and former) Buffalonian with most of my family still in the area, I like to keep track of things back home. One great source that I’ve found in my Web 2.0 world is the Buffalo Rising blog.
Here is a post from that blog talking about the upcoming new release of their site …. and it includes some very interesting thinking about community development. Namely - Reputation and Value-added functionality.
I think these guys are generating some highly interesting content, and it keeps me connected to the changes in the Buffalo area - particularly downtown where the creative class that is involved in blogging and Web 2.0 are beginning to remake the city around its many assets.
If you’re interested in community development, read the above post and check out their site when it launches with the new features. I’m certainly interested in what features will be included.
If you’re a Web 2.0 technology type - the areas of cross-community reputation management and powering community widgets may be compelling market opportunities. As more of these "local" communities develop and flourish, they will need these capabilities. A service that works across sites and content management systems may be the way to go.
On a somewhat related topic, are communities like Buffalo Rising the next generation of the local newspaper, or what the local web was supposed to be all about way back when (aka Citysearch, etc.)?
– brian
Wordpress adds Auto-save
I recently posted on the need for more Web 2.0 services adding an auto-save feature, similar to that of Gmail.
Well, Wordpress has been working on it and seems to be ready to release it. Here is a link to the discussion on the Wordpress site and a post from BloggingPro.com on the topic.
I’m looking forward to using this feature on my Listening Post blog.
– brian
Web 2.0 and “auto save”
This is a slight rant. With the move to all of these cool Web 2.0 services (blogs, forums, wikis, communities, webmail, weboffice, etc. etc.) and all of the buzz around it, the usability still has some way to go. My biggest beef is with the lack of auto-save features implemented in Web 2.0 services.
I love the auto save feature on Gmail. It has saved my butt many times. I hate the fact that most SaaS applications and other Web 2.0 services do not have this feature. It’s the old problem of using Word and having Windows crash or lock-up: I forgot to save while I was working. Now it’s on the web, and things like my MacBook losing it’s WiFi connection (yes that is still happening) and not being able to backspace to cut and save my post, or my MacBook battery shorting out at 83% for no reason and killing my computer, or a webservice going down due to power grid overloads (hello BlueHost and Dreamhost) during a post happen and can nuke a lot of work when in the process of trying to post a blog entry, an opportunity into SugarCRM, a comment on a blog or forum, etc.
A Web 2.0 love fest is going on with Ajax. Follow Google’s lead here - auto save is not a far fetched feature on Webapps. Everyone …. Implement it! Please! If there is a valid excuse as to why it cannot be implemented, I’d love to hear about it in the comments here.
– brian
Media 2.0 continued - relevance & automation
In continuing on the theme of being able to parse and digest the current wave and coming tsunami of microchunked content from my previous post, I would like to offer a potential idea for a service offering in this area up for debate. Since the blogosphere is full of customers of this type of service - and I’m sure many of you are still choking on all of the content being sent or pulled your way - I’m thinking of this as a sort of focus group.
Brad Feld posted on this topic after seeing hundreds of redundant postings that largely said the same thing about the “Yahoo / del.icio.us” deal. For me, this may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I’ve been seeing this problem among the feeds that I read for some time now, but this deal was over the top in terms of redundancy.
One of Brad’s readers questioned whether there are built-in reasons for this in the current blog-search market. That is, bloggers are hooked on Technorati / Google for relevance, and get it by posting about and linking to the hot stories, regardless of how many times it is told. The problem is, by analogy, if I’m subscribing to every small town newspaper from across the country, I’m not going to look at the World/National section in every one. I’ll read the WSJ or NY Times or equivalent for that, and read only the local news for relevant stories in any particular paper.
There is a larger issue here - is finding the best blogs or best individual posts a search-driven process? When I think of the Web, I think of it as a vast body of information and services that are available to me. Search is an appropriate metaphor, because I generally know what I want and I just need to parse the available options for what it is that I’m looking for. The search method works for this … and using links as a proxy for relevance seems to be a good algorithm.
Now, when I think of blog reading and subscribing to content, I have a different mindset. I do not know what the news is on any given day, nor do I know what original analyses, insights, topics, etc. people are going to want to publish on any given day. Here I look for trusted sources and referrals. I then subscribe to the sources, parse the content, and recommend / discuss with others. And the cycle starts again. In the old world there were not many choices - WSJ, NY Times, Forbes, Meet the Press, etc.
With the world of content syndication - blogs, podcasts, and video - the choices are too numerous to be able to find all of the trusted sources that would be relevant to me. Plus, from those trusted sources, not all of the postings are going to be relevant, so I’m more interested in the microchunks of content - specific posts or segments of podcasts from any given source. For example, from which of my numerous sources do I want to read about the Yahoo/del.icio.us deal? Who do I trust the most on that topic?
So, if this is the case and the search metaphor does not scale for microchunk subscription content, how does one scale a trusted source & referral model? I do think that it starts with word of mouth and some searching …. that is to build your initial list of trusted blogs and other subscriptions. But these will not be enough, nor will the list be dynamic.
From there, I think there needs to be a service offering in the market that can (1) find relevant new trusted sources for me regularly and dynamically, (2) parse those sources for relevant postings / microchunks and deliver them to me, and (3) allow an automated filter for redundant posts from across sources.
The service I’m imagining would require that users upload all of their existing subscriptions in a categorization or list structure from their existing feed reader (with rankings if the feed reader allows for export of rankings). The service would then apply an intelligent filtering algorithm (probably based on a collaborative filter) to recommend new content sources based on what others in the network are reading and finding valuable. The user can syncronize with the service to get these recommended new feeds.
As a second order of value, the service would allow users to receive only those postings or microchunks of content that other subscribers like them in the network found to be valuable. This filter would use the trusted sources and again do some form of collaborative filtering to determine which individual postings and microchunks are relevant. In order to score the quality of a posting, it is likely that some form of meta data about that post would need to be uploaded from the user to the service for each post (e.g. tags, rating, or whether the post was read).
A well functioning service such as that described above, would benefit all in that (1) readers get better content from across more trusted sources while having to read fewer postings and (2) the quality bar for content will go up dramatically since only the most relevant content will reach readers (and the post-spamming of hot stories to get listed on search will decrease). Well I guess the least relevant bloggers would not benefit much.
The business model for all of this …. assuming the algorithms work and it’s easy enough to use …. could be a service subscription model and advertising. The advertising could be shared with the bloggers. It would be likely that subscribers could use the feed reader / microchunk reader (when we start digesting podcast chunks, etc.) of their choice (maybe with a plug-in to deliver the appropriate meta data for the algorithms to do their work.
I would love comments …..
– bkm
