A Revolution in Business

An Executive Interview with Rob Howard of Telligent

Rob Howard, CEO and Founder of Telligent, explains how social communication is changing the landscape of business.

“My vision – and what I consider the ‘Holy Grail’ – is to see a completely integrated set of collaboration and communication tools that are device independent.”
-Rob Howard, CEO and Founder of Telligent

BM. Consumer applications such as Facebook and MySpace have revolutionized the way users interact with each other over the web. What benefits can such Web 2.0 tools bring to the world of business?
RH. Competitive businesses are constantly searching for new ways to increase efficiency. That’s where Web 2.0 comes in. With Web 2.0 tools, an organization can increase efficiency in real-time communication, simplified collaboration, conversation archiving, expert discovery through social networking and more. The realization of the use of Web 2.0 within the enterprise has even been granted its own moniker: Enterprise 2.0. Enterprise 2.0 describes how forward-thinking companies are using tools such as wikis, blogs and web discussion systems to capture corporate intelligence and then build communities around areas of expertise. These communities then facilitate faster information sharing, which ultimately makes the organization more competitive. For example, we work with a leading auto manufacturer that uses our platform to address supply-chain problems. When problems arise, an expert community exists – along with an archive of past problems – that can help address the issue quickly and efficiently. Prior to applying these technologies, it could have taken days to find the experts or the knowledge required to resolve the problem.

BM. The way people work together is changing and communication is happening in real-time at a much faster pace. What tools are emerging to help advance teamwork and interaction between employers, employees and customers in a global landscape?
RH. The tools have always been there. What has changed is now these tools are being put together as integrated suites. Example: search solutions have matured to the point where it is now possible to quickly find the right information. A common tool such as email is now being completely integrated into community solutions so that group conversations can be archived, shared, reused and most importantly re-discovered. Other tools such as blogs are enabling a vast amount of organizational knowledge to be shared and reused. At one Fortune 100 company I recently met with, they started an internal corporate blog server and now have over 14,000 posts from throughout the organization. We’re also seeing a proliferation of video publishing as another way of documenting and sharing best practices.

BM. And how will such tools integrate with existing enterprise applications and systems?
RH. Integration with existing enterprise applications is critical to adoption. Some of the key integration areas start with identity and profile management, typically within a system such as a Microsoft Active Directory or Sun LDAP. It’s within these enterprise directory systems that most organizations keep track of manager/direct report relationships, user profile details such as location, as well as policy information. We’ve found that by integrating single sign-on with these systems, customers can simply use their same corporate identity to login as well as maintain and update their profile information, which has been very popular. Beyond identity and profile management integration, we’ve found that Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Exchange have also been very successful integration points for the platform. In the future, we’re evaluating integration with other systems such as LinkedIn and SalesForce.com, too.

BM. The key for any so-called Enterprise 2.0 or social networking provider looking to gain business customers is adoption. What challenges does this present – both technologically and culturally?
RH. The largest challenge for any organization adopting an Enterprise 2.0 solution is simply overcoming the FUD – fear, uncertainty and doubt – associated with these solutions. The technological hurdles are often easy to overcome, but the culture hurdles are much more difficult. The most common cultural barrier to overcome is fear – individuals unfamiliar with how Enterprise 2.0 solutions work are typically afraid of a variety of ‘what if’ situations. Most of these fears are unwarranted and are comparable to the worries of a person running into a packed theatre shouting, ‘fire!’ It simply doesn’t happen.

BM. What recommendations do you have for any business looking to rollout an enterprise social computing implementation?
RH. If you are in a position to make such a decision, take the time to read books like Wikinomics, Groundswell and others that deal more intimately with this topic. There are also a number of organizations, such as ours, that routinely meet with companies and advise them on strategy for how to execute an Enterprise 2.0 solution. The worst mistake you can make is to take the cavalier attitude that if you build it, they will come. Unfortunately and too often, this is not the case. Each organization has its own unique culture, and understanding the culture is key to deploying a successful Enterprise 2.0 solution.

BM. What do you see as the Holy Grail for enterprise social networks? How do you think they will revolutionize the way companies operate? And how long do you think it will be before such technologies are ubiquitous within an enterprise setting?
RH. My vision – and what I consider the ‘Holy Grail’ – is to see a completely integrated set of collaboration and communication tools that are device independent. We aren’t very far away from this integrated world of VoIP, video communication, etc., being integrated into the current Enterprise 2.0 toolset. With the slowing economy, more distributed workforces and flattening of the business markets, the demand for wholly integrated enterprise systems is finally on the horizon. This will do for business what all big revolutions do for business: enable great companies to gain a competitive advantage through increased efficiencies.

Extra info

The future of social networks
Charlene Li, Vice President and Principal Analyst for Forrester Research, projects 2008-2009 to be the era of data portability and 2013 to be the timing of the ubiquitous social networks.

In order to keep pace with technology, she recommends that brands:

• Create linkages between services based on individually-controlled identity federation
• Compete on creating the most compelling social experience, not social graph lock-in
• Develop social applications that have meaning
• Integrate social networks into existing activities (both customer-facing and behind the firewall)
• Design business models that reflect the value created by people’s social networks