Pretzel Logic – Social and Collaborative Business

I started engaging on the social web exactly two years ago. Unlike most “veterans”, when I dipped my toes into the proverbial participatory pond, I started the other way around. Twitter first, then blog. Which might seem inconsequential but there’s an interesting dynamic there. I don’t want to get all Match.com on you but getting to know people based on conversations first is pretty awesome. You get to know people based on personality, bi-directional engagement and all on very open, public mediums where cosmetics can’t hide much.

What I cherish most has been the relationships I have built over the last two years. Last week at a conference, I mentioned to a few folks that Twitter is “friendship lead gen”. That sounds crass but its not.  Twitter for me is a giant pool of potential relationships but more importantly, a self selecting qualifier of where meaningful relationships can be formed.  Relationships that are characterized by not only friendships but professional respect, inspiration and constant learning.

And as I think of that, I do believe that we all make interesting decisions about who to engage with and how. We all have our ways of vetting out where meaningful relationships can be established. At the speed of a Tweet, a DM or a group IM, I know where the best answers are, those I can call at 3 am if I’m in a pinch in many parts of the world, and yes, those that will smack me on the head if I ever veer off the practical pragmatic path in my analysis.

And so I give thanks here to those I have gotten to know but more importantly :

• Those who engage openly and who mercilessly qualify the data and thoughts they put into my social stream
• Those that really help others by explaining not just the ‘what’  in their analysis but the ‘why’ and sometimes, the ‘how’
• Those that don’t think they’re cats whiskers
• Those that have integrity and don’t lose their souls as career paths and allegiances morph
• Those that collectively and implicitly weed out the un-authentic drivel that is, thankfully, so easy to detect on the social web
• Those that don’t join the ranks of parties who sell 2.0 but themselves employ the very 1.0 tactics that we tell our customers will not work anymore

I’d like to believe that I do all of the above myself but I’ll let you judge.

When I was considering joining my father in his business years ago, he made a comment that I remember clearly (not sure but this may not be his phrase):

“If both of us always agree, one of us is unnecessary”

That pretty much sums up my relationship with those I’ve become closest to on the social web and where I’ve taken these relationships offline and even to the dinner table in my home. The deepest relationships have been formed because we agree and then unabashedly share and celebrate the best thinking but also because we don’t, yet seek the best alternatives to what we think is the best solution.

And with this post, I’ve now added a new tag called  “soppy” to my blog sidebar. : –)

Happy thanksgiving to you and yours.

On Dec 2nd, distinguished faculty members from Babson College (my Alma Mater) – MBA Dean Raghu Tadepalli and Dr. P.J. Guinan, professor of technology, operations, and information management will present research on the use of Social Media in the Enterprise in San Francisco.

Ragu is someone I’ve come to know recently and I keep in touch with some of my professors there and speak with them about research in the areas of Social Media, Knowledge Networks and Ecosystem Collaboration. So I’m thrilled to see an event of this caliber taking place here in the Bay Area.

Included in this research presentation is a detailed study of Cisco’s collaborative and social media efforts (embedded below) .

I’m really looking forward to the event and hope to see you there. More info here and registration details here.

Guinan Cisco (1)

About this time last year, I threw out a prediction that in 2010 Telcos will get into the Enterprise 2.0 business by bundling social software solutions for the SMB space. In December of 2009, I said:

Telcos will start looking at picking up affordable SaaS Enterprise 2.0 suites. Why? As mindshare starts to get split between Email and Microblogging/Activity streams, telcos and CSPs that offer white label business email hosting for the SMB market will see these as a natural extension. In the SMB market, standalone solutions are key to allow for simple, cheap distribution directly as well as via small reseller partners that don’t want service and customization headaches. E2.0 SaaS offerings meet those criteria. In addition they offer ready plug ins into other popular SMB apps such as SalesForce for those that want integration.

That could mean a huge buyer market outside of the traditional enterprise players who seem to prefer build as opposed to buy scenarios (Salesforce Chatter, TIBCO Tibbr, SharePoint 2010, SAP Constellation, etc).

If I’m somewhat correct, expect the likes of British Telecom, Singtel and Comcast etc jump in. If I’m very right and my commoditization assessment from last year holds true, we’ll see more players such as RackSpace and XO communications start to pay attention as well.

Fast forward to November and it looks like I was on target albeit by the skin of my teeth. Cisco Systems, the makers of Cisco Quad, announced a hosted SMB solution for their existing Telco channel to distribute. Says Murali Sitaram, VP at Cisco who oversees the collaboration business:

"We think our telecom partners over time will have the opportunity to deliver full services using our products." Murali Sitaram, the Cisco vice president in charge of Quad, told me in a recent interview. "So [that can include] cloud-based, or private cloud based or hosted services for our customers, using the range of UC and collaboration components we have."

Where I expected that a telco will have made an acquisition by now, this move by Cisco puts the products in the hands of Telcos to resell. Don’t be surprised if this triggers a few large telcos to acquire social software technology and keep the entire spread. Most of what an SMB requires is basic social software functionality and most likely, that can be attained at a commodity price. Whilst we’ve seen over and over again that larger companies continue to chose the build over buy route (Novell, NetSuite and Epicor for example) when it comes to social software solutions, there is an argument to be made for the IP that’s gone into building scalable and purpose driven experiences by the more mature start ups (relatively speaking).

Looking at 2011….

It’s only November but since Starbucks in the US has already started selling coffee in red and green paper cups (gulp), I’ll take the liberty of penning a 2011 prediction that I’ve already stated to many industry insiders:

Expect Intuit/its’ competitors to make a SaaS-based social software acquisition (such as Yammer, Basecamp or Socialcast) or enter the business organically. Intuit’s core competency in my view is less about its’ ability to sell hosted business process services but it’s close relationship with a gynormous SMB base, thanks in part to its amazing community building efforts. They’re way ahead of the curve that I laid out here over the summer. And tacking on collaboration for an additional $1-$3 a month looks like a slam dunk way to own employee engagement  – a capability that’s an extremely fragmented or even down right neglected system-of-record in the SMB software stack.

Based on what were seeing in the market in our work with large-co buyers that are looking to execute social software enabled business programs, I see a few more industry shifts coming to market that buyers and sellers need to get ready for. But this was worth an open discussion right about now.

Enterprise social software is in for a wild ride in 2011 as large companies enter the market and smaller ones alter their focus to solving known business and process inefficiencies. As a result of this, expect the sell-side to get very very noisy with their marketing.

As someone who cut his teeth in the traditional strategy consulting business, SWAGs (‘strategic wild ass guess’) were common back then. Thankfully (hopefully?) we all get better with age by adding experience and logic to what we expect to see coming down the pike : – )

For research on market moves as you make/validate critical business directional decisions and technology choices, get in touch.

Effective today, the Sovos Group is happy to announce the creation of the Constellation Research Group. Sovos is one of the founding members of this new entity. Constellation brings together leading consultants and research analysts in the Enterprise space (bios below) that cover critical areas of business strategy and technology research. This new collaborative model now allows us to wrap a comprehensive set of expertise around critical challenges and opportunities faced by end users as well as buyers and sellers of technology enabled solutions.

Why We Think This is a Win for Customers

To truly accelerate performance for 21st century enterprises, the answer lies far beyond specific technology-enabled innovation categories. Silo-ed approaches to evaluating the benefit of emerging technology areas will not bring optimal benefit with respect to how organizations engage and transact with customers, employees, distribution partners and suppliers.

Those organizations that break away from the pack will have successfully used the right blend of not just social and collaborative constructs but also other critical technology pockets such as in-memory computing, cloud based computing, traditional and new ERP driven structured process and context, mobile and tablet experiences and of course, social media. Similarly, from a sector perspective, public sector initiatives around collaboration and enterprise social software offer a lot of lessons learned for private institutions, and vice versa.

Constellation Research members counts some of the most accomplished names in each of these business and technology segments areas as well as public and private sector expertise. And our joint research agendas will aim to help organizations understand how to bring all of this innovation together to effectively meet an organizations operational and financial metrics.

Is Sovos Changing?

So what changes at Sovos? Nothing and Everything. We will continue to work exactly as we have as Sovos with some of the largest organizations in the world that we are privileged to help. But now along with our Constellation Research colleagues, we get to also bring the best research around adjacent technologies and concepts such as ERP, Mobile Computing, Infrastructure planning and sourcing to get the best out of your enterprise collaboration and social initiatives. We will contribute research around topics were best at and draw on the best thinking and provide joint thought leadership.

About Constellation

Our research agenda includes a number of emerging trends and technologies: enterprise applications, legacy system optimization, cloud computing, mobile computing, social networking, business analytics, game theory, and unified communications.

Constellation first and foremost a research firm. We work to a research agenda and work with our clients to shape that agenda. We provided both open and syndicated products and we build long term retained relationships with both our buy side and sell side clients. Our primary product is our IP and knowledge which we share deliver in many mediums such as reports, webinars, and project consulting. A FAQ can be found here.

Introducing The Constellation Founding Team

We have assembled a really top-notch group of analysts.

• Phil Fersht (@pfersht) is a well-known industry analyst covering business process outsourcing (BPO) and IT services worldwide. He is the founder of the acclaimed global sourcing blog “Horses for Sources.” Before that he worked for 15 years at AMR Research (now Gartner Group), Deloitte Consulting, Everest Group, and IDC.
• Maribel Lopez (@maribellopez) brings deep industry knowledge in covering the communications industry. With over two decades of marketing as well as industry analyst experience, she has covered the massive shifts in the communication market. Maribel has worked in marketing at Motorola and Shiva corp and as an analyst for IDC. She also put in over 10 years at Forrester Research, most recently as Vice President of the tech industry strategies group, covering network and service strategies, enterprise communications, and consumer markets for voice, video, and data.
• Oliver Marks (@olivermarks) is a partner at the Sovos Group. Oliver provides consulting to end-user organizations on the effective planning of collaboration strategy, tactics, technology decisions, change management and roll out. Oliver previously managed the Sony WorldWide collaboration extranet, and has worked with the American Management Association, Sun, Docent/SumTotal Systems, Harvard Business School and McKinsey on major initiatives around knowledge transfer and change management.
• Vinnie Mirchandani (@dealarchitect) is a thought-leader on trends in software, outsourcing, and offshoring. He has personally assisted clients in negotiate technology contracts valued in excess of $5 billion and has advised companies on IT risk management, globalization and sourcing issues. Vinnie is the founder of Deal Architect and is a former Gartner analyst and an outsourcing executive with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
• Paul Papadimitriou (@papadimitirou) is a big thinker on online media, its impact on how brands and individuals communicate, and the redefinition of social norms through new technologies. With more than a decade of experience as a lobbyist and business consultant, he delivers intelligence to companies seeking to understand the shift in customer engagement. Paul also advises startups, writes about Japan mobile & web trends, and is a sought-after speaker at conferences around the world.
• Sameer Patel (@sameerpatel) is a partner athe the Sovos group. Sameer is a recognized expert in accelerating business performance via the use of collaboration and enterprise social software. He has more than a decade of experience managing initiatives for large organizations to help drive sales and marketing intelligence, partner network optimization, innovation, customer acquisition, and employee productivity via communication and collaboration technologies. Sameer’s clients have included Ingres, Sun Microsystems, Computer Associates, KPMG, McKesson HBOC, WR Wrigley Co., The Sabre Group, Grupo Televisa (Mx), and Cardinal Health.
• Frank Scavo (@fscavo) is the co-founder of Strativa, a management consulting firm providing business and IT advice to end-user organizations. He has over 20 years of experience in IT strategy, IT management metrics, enterprise applications, and business process improvement, serving end-users in a broad range of industries, including manufacturing, life sciences, consumer products, high-tech, distribution, retail distribution, and information services. He is especially skilled at aligning business and IT strategy, developing the business case for new systems, and facilitating the selection of enterprise systems, such as ERP, CRM, and supply chain management. He is also an expert in benchmarking IT spending and staffing levels for end-user IT organizations. Frank is a Certified Fellow in Production and Inventory Management (CFPIM) by APICS, the Association for Operations Management. He is also the President of Computer Economics, an IT research and metrics firm, founded in 1979.
• Alan Silberberg (@ideagov) is a leading analyst in Gov 2.0. He speaks on transformational change, crisis and brand communications, and government 2.0 and the crossover into business and technology. Alan has government and private sector experience, having served in the U.S. White House, at Paramount Pictures and numerous technology companies as an advisor, founder or investor. His clients have included the Vatican Global Licensing group, currently elected officials, and former elected officials as well as numerous technology startups. He is focused on the business side of Government 2.0 and how the technology platforms create commercial ventures and new markets. He is the founder of Gov20LA which is the first west coast un-conference for Gov 2.0 tech.
• R “Ray” Wang, the driving force behind Constellation. A former Altimeter, VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester, he has a long history with enterprise applications as well as other leading-edge technologies. He headed up the analyst relations program for PeopleSoft, and at Oracle, he served senior product management roles for both the ERP and CRM product lines. He was voted Analyst of the Year for both 2008 and 2009 by the prestigious Institute of Industry Analyst Relations (IIAR)

Constellation Service Offerings

We work with our clients to tailor programs of access through open research, syndicated research, and one-on-one interactive engagement. Advisory services include:

Visit the Constellation Research Group website for more information, or simply contact me if you are interested in our services. Would love to hear your comments on the blog or send me an email to sameer.a.patel@gmail.com. And I’m at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Santa Clara if you want to meet in person.

Thanks to every one who reached out privately and publicly with well wishes. It means a lot!

A few months ago I opined on the difference between Innovation and Innovation Cultures here, on this blog. It was a riff inspired by a post by Pat Lencioni on Bloomberg/Businessweek that largely dismissed Innovation programs, saying":

As heretical as that may seem to those who want to believe that “innovation is everyone’s business,” consider that even the most innovative and creative organizations need far more people to be dutiful, enthusiastic, and consistent in their work than innovative or creative.”

Whilst the general theme of bringing a huge dose of practical appeals to my thinking on management and next generation enterprises, the article takes an almost lazy swipe at all things innovation that led me to distinguish between everyone becoming full time innovators vs. fostering innovative cultures.

But it’s important to note that this line of thinking offered in BusinessWeek joins a host of voices that are questioning the basic value of innovation programs from a cost/benefit and quality perspective. I’ve seen this first hand with leadership teams we engage with: Where executives hobnobbing on golf courses originally heard about ideation programs and isolated success stories of how others found diamonds in the rough, they are also now hearing about how many of these efforts created a cesspool of ideas that have little to do with operating and financial metrics that shareholders care about.  And often, ideologists of all things “open” have fueled the fire with statements such as “there’s no such thing as a bad idea.”. The reality is that orgs continue to have a limited appetite to experiment in these recessionary times and so the pundits have a field day with pushing pessimistic and myopic strands of innovation management.

Next week I’m going to be part of the keynote line up at the Defrag Conference and will expand on this topic. There are a few important considerations for both practitioners looking to infuse innovative thinking into their organizations as well as for vendors that are pushing innovation platforms or features as part of the enterprise social software bag of tricks. Like every other area of performance acceleration via social and collaborative constructs, Innovation needs to step up, pronto. And I hope to spark a discussion on making a case for a more practical justification for infusing innovative instincts into the enterprise fabric.

This year, Defrag offers a slightly altered agenda – showcasing start up driven disruption as it has always done but also providing a cold shower balancing that with leading large enterprise thinking from the bunch of smarty pants that call themselves the Enterprise Irregulars. Many of these folks are people I consider friends or I highly respect. And I know they will kill it. In addition, look for some really smart keynotes from the likes of my former colleague, Alex Wright, Maggie Fox, Jeff Dachis, Dion Hinchcliffe, Professor Vivek Wadhwa and others.

At almost any other conference, it would be sacrilege to have so many vendors on stage. But Defrag is different. Since the topic is about disrupting the status quo of today with what can look like abstract ideas that will only gestate in the near future, it’s almost impossible to have a discussion about future trends in the absence of raw passion that only entrepreneurs can exhibit. And Defrag provides the venue for this.

When you look at the agenda at Defrag (20% discount code “spkrmagic1” here) from a birds eye view, you see a pack of hyenas (READ: a bunch of startups) hard at work, poking and prodding the Googles, Amazons, Microsofts, and Facebooks of today with radically new approaches that could disrupt service provisioning as we know it today. This is how I recently described Defrag to a customer.

Themes include:

Apps, Marketplaces and Platforms, Analytics, Crowds and Innovation, Big Data and Collaboration

So even if Innovation is not your bag, you will learn other stuff that makes you more smarter about where the proverbial puck will be. And hopefully get you thinking about how you can capitalize on these new opportunities.

See you in Colorado.

Headed to Toronto to speak at WebCom Toronto this week.

From the site:

On November 3rd, immerse yourself in the world of new Web trends, technologies and strategies and gauge their full potential for your enterprise. Learn about key collaboration strategies and techniques, wikis, real-time Web with Yammer, Internet/Intranet communities and professional social networks. All highlighted in information-packed 2 tracks: Enterprise 2.0 and Social Enterprise Solutions. Benchmark with enterprise best practices and leading edge case studies from around the world. 
 

The event is offers a good blend of customer case studies on collaboration and Enterprise 2.0 as well as new insights on the social web from leading thinkers and doers. Lots of good speakers lined up who are awesome at what they do: Jon Husband, Maggie Fox, Walton Smith and Shel Holtz. Don Tapscott from nGenera will be be talking about new insights from his book, MacroWikinomics.

My slot will be about 21st century collaborative enterprises: the Customer Case. Thanks to the social web, the contract between customers and enterprises is changing dramatically. As the rapid adoption of the social web continues, this change has a profound impact on how we are wired as an ecosystem of customers, prospects, employees and partners. Depending on how you approach it, there’s lots of opportunity and not just defensive play required, to capitalize on this shift.

You can register, here.

If you’re attending, please say hello.

A few weeks ago I did a video cast hosted by IBM on the “Social Workplace”.   We talked about what tomorrows workplace will look like, discussed what is a red hot issue these days – preparing for millennials and their expectations for the workplace, and finally, the challenges and the opportunities for HR and performance acceleration in the enterprise in general. IBM released an excellent  report on Working beyond Borders that sparked this conversation. Link to the report, here.

Included in the video are some really sharp folks: Jennifer Okimoto from IBM Global  Services, Dr. Jennifer Beal from the Center of Creative Leadership and  Josip Petrusa, a Gen Y/millennial blogger.

Organizations are increasingly re-thinking the design of their collaborative fabric in the face of market consolidation, globalization and of course, the increasingly social prospect and customer. This has a big impact on how they engage with customers, how they innovate, how they reduce risk and build products. Workplace performance constructs become an important consideration and one that puts IT and HR in pole position to help business groups break down walls between customers, employees and partners in a mature and practical  way.   This stands in sharp contrast to a spray and pray social strategy where meaningful execution components can get lost in the hype.

Each of the panelists articulated decisive value propositions for adopting more fluid ways of work via new social and collaborative constructs, based on grounded business need.

Here is a video of just the highlights.

If you like, an archive of the whole show can also be found here.