e2.oh » jive http://www.e2oh.com Investigations Into Enterprise 2.0 Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:15:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Jive Snares IBM Social Software Evangelist http://www.e2oh.com/2008/05/20/jive-snares-big-it-social-software-evangelist/ http://www.e2oh.com/2008/05/20/jive-snares-big-it-social-software-evangelist/#comments Tue, 20 May 2008 15:27:00 +0000 Jay Hariani http://www.e2oh.com/2008/05/20/jive-snares-big-it-social-software-evangelist/ Gia Lyons, who spent a while at IBM trying to show companies what’s possible with social software, now works for Jive. While checking out her blogged new employee interview, I found this especially insightful:

Customers are willing to go with pure play and niche vendors for social software because they recognize that a fresh approach is needed here. The folks who wrote your email and shared file applications approach social software through 15 years of “business as usual” thinking.

As someone who tries to convince clients that social software from vendors they never heard of can be more successful then something built by the same people who sold them their ERP or ECM systems, this is heartening. When it comes to Enterprise 2.0, firms like Jive are agile in a way Big IT can’t be, or at least is not yet willing to be. Building good social software involves an element of discarding the past – it’s easier for the firms with a very limited one.

]]> http://www.e2oh.com/2008/05/20/jive-snares-big-it-social-software-evangelist/feed/ 0 Open Collaboration With Customers = Sell More Stuff http://www.e2oh.com/2008/02/08/open-collaboration-with-customers-sell-more-stuff/ http://www.e2oh.com/2008/02/08/open-collaboration-with-customers-sell-more-stuff/#comments Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:26:28 +0000 Jay Hariani http://www.e2oh.com/2008/02/08/open-collaboration-with-customers-sell-more-stuff/ Making good software is hard. Really hard. From my experience working with vendors, enterprise software is hard to get right. Good software companies learned a while ago that allowing their customers insight into their development process helps them make better software more quickly – creating a feedback loop makes customers see that their input is valued, and leads to a higher quality product. Atlassian, for example, allows customers to submit not just bugs, but submit and vote on feature requests. Jive, with their Clearspace X product, allows more then just software companies to engage their customers. I think Clearspace X is a very exciting product, and firmly believe companies will start buying into E2.0 CRM solutions aggressively. They offer what is (at least right now) perhaps the most compelling use of E2.0 – building vibrant customer communities and networks – something tied directly to the bottom line.

This interview, with Mozilla’s Mitchell Baker, elaborates how exposing the inner working of your company to your customers can have many, many benefits . Mozilla, as an organization, operates in a fishbowl. Very little of what happens inside of the company is hidden from public scrutiny. This poses some intersting management challenges, but at the end of the day has lead to exceptional products. Because Mozilla’s customers are so integral to its process, it’s much easier for it’s products to be what users want them to be

These vocal, contributory communities of customers – fostered by technologies like Clearspace X and management that supports open collaboration and transparency – could be referred to as “Marketing 2.0″. No degree of advertising could have given Firefox the level of momentum it has. Again, I’d wager that software companies aren’t the only businesses that harness their customers in this fashion. Opening the enterprise to two-way collaboration with customers will prove to be a competitive advantage. But it will take a touch of vision, and a certain willingness to have your mistakes publicized, to realize that value.

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