enterprise social

TIBCO's enterprise social software tibbr now has full support for the iPhone 5, BlackBerry 10 platform, and several new Android devices.

The technology landscape is going through one of its periodic upheavals, as several big trends -- mobile devices, cloud computing, and decentralized social collaboration -- come together. As these consumer products and ideas move into the workplace, some epic battles are underway. Their outcome will shape the next 20 years of the workplace.

CITEworld talked with numerous IT professionals and business leaders over the past few months about how their enterprises implemented various social, mobile and cloud projects emanating from the consumerization trend sweeping the workplace. All of their stories have been interesting, and all report notable and sometimes transformative improvements in how their organizations do business and interact with customers. Here is some distilled wisdom passed on from three of these enterprise consumerization pioneers.

Computer maker Dell uses a social community platform to engage with and inform existing and potential customers. And while "selling" on Dell's TechCenter is prohibited, the social platform's growing popularity is translating into more revenue.

Google's 10-person consumer video chat service has replaced traditional conferencing tools for small meetings at Shaw Industries, a 26,000 person company. 

Keys included getting execs involved, recruiting social evangelists, and only then migrating email lists to online communities.

The Ghost Town, Drama Central, High School Clique, and other pitfalls.

Analytics is about more than counting users, posts, searches, and so forth. How many relationships are forged? How many experts are identified? How much more innovative is the company? How much is communication improved? That's where the real value of enterprise social networks can be found.

Yammer's David Sacks caused quite a fuss in August when he suggested the best days of Silicon Valley entrepreneurship were behind us. That's why his decision to advise a new Silicon Valley startup is turning heads. We caught up with him to ask why he's advising Twist.

Social networking is now a permanent part of the workplace, and for good reason -- it enables collaboration, brand messaging and customer outreach, among other things.

It also makes an awful lot of noise, which can be distracting and overwhelming, two byproducts that can inhibit productivity.

To help enterprise workers manage the flood of social information, social software vendor NewsGator this week is releasing an add-on to Microsoft's SharePoint.

Social Sites 3.0 will work with SharePoint 2010 and the upcoming SharePoint 2013.