All that Jive: Putting the 'social' into business software

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Jive's Opportunity

Have worked for years in the collaboration market, I understand your and Dennis Howlett's skepticism about employees contributing to platforms like Jive. In Jive's favor, though, I would point out that 1) these employees are the same people who are used to posting information on Facebook or in the comments section of their favorite online newspaper--they're increasingly comfortable posting content in such applications, 2) in many organizations, employees--grateful to finally get easy access to valuable internal information--may jump on the bandwagon, the 1/9/90 rule notwithstanding (see Socialcast's recent case study about NASA, for example), and 3) those new "Centers," such as Sales and Marketing, not only give the Jive sales team something to upsell--they also may provide an operational focus (and win over a few internal champions) that can drive adoption of the platform overall.

Of course, the "Centers" create a new challenge, too. Sales and Marketing automation, for example, is a battleground with an increasing number of vendors, from Salesforce.com to SugarCRM (who is also making the transformation to a general business information platform), not to mention vendors even more tightly focused on those niches.

There's also a data quality issue here. An industry analyst friend of mine is horrified at the prospect of users posting business data so freely. Instead of a "single version of the truth," a company may end up with competing blog entries, "truths" slanted by department politics, and outright errors. And the effort required to clear THAT up, is probably greater than the effort to get employees to contribute in the first place.

It would be interesting to hear from vendors how they would address my friend's concerns, but that's a question for another day.

Overall, I think this is a smart move on Jive's part. Define the category. Become a real platform. And get your consultants out there to make it successful. Why play if you're not swinging for the fence?

Posted by: John Bennett   Posted on: 03/10/09 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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