1. You are one of the EU pioneers of social media. How has that changed your professional life?
Social media allows me to do things and reach people that are not possible in the traditional world of media. For example, the ability to interact directly with those who choose to read my blog and, in particular, to watch how conversations are facilitated between both sides of the buy-sell community opens up entirely new ways of communicating and discovering information that would otherwise be hidden.
2. How has social media emerged in businesses since you became involved?
Slowly! In the professional services world I occupy, there is a LOT of inertia and enormous resistance to the kinds of challenge that social media presents. However, I'm seeing more professionals prepared to put their heads above the parapet and get beyond that 'first blog post.' My sense is that once the proverbial dam breaks, there will be a deluge of collaborative material from which everyone will benefit.
3. In some ways, you and I sit at opposite ends of the social media universe. I'm a startups guy and I equate you with financial services in the enterprise. How do you see these two perspectives being similar? How do they differ?
It's all a matter of perspective. I prefer to concentrate on the similarities yet recognise the differences. So for example, social media aimed at startups has a huge amount to offer the professional who provides advisory services to those startups, especially in disciplines like marketing. However, professionals often believe their interactions should be more formal than is usually found in social media. But then there is a fundamental divide on the process question. It is interesting to note that mature organisations expect to see process applied to tools like wiki. That presents issues because in a general sense, wiki eschews the notion of clearly defined process and control. Folk like me have to walk that tightrope - and it's not easy.
4. From your enterprise perspective, where do you see social media going over the next several years? How different or similar will the European-based enterprise look from on based in North America or Asia?
We should recognise that social media is both part of a wider collaborative trend and an expression of the 'fashion' nature of the IT business. As such, EU organisations have the benefit of being fashion followers. We can observe what happens State-side, learn from both successes and failures and take the best of the best only make it better. However, it is important to recognise that Europe is not a homogenous geography and management styles vary considerably from one country to another. That has a huge impact on issues around adoption and implementation. However, I think we will see some surprises.
While there is a strong 'master/servant' management style in France and Spain, there are indications this model could be broken through social media. For example weblogssl in Spain is garnering a substantial audience and of course Loic LeMeur has been hugely influential both in France and in the wider EU community.
5. What-if any- trends do you see now forming regarding social media and the enterprise?
You have to look at what's happening now to obtain clues for the future. For me, the stand out example is SAP and its SDN/BPX community. SAP is working at the bleeding edge of many social media concepts, is prepared to make mistakes and take considered criticism. Its Bloggers Corner programme is unquestionably innovative, taking folk like myself deep into the heart of a company that is often charactersed as defensive and of appeal to industry laggards.
The fact its SDN community numbers some 800,000 and its BPX community recently passed the 150,000 mark speaks volumes. But...the smaller, specialist communities like FBPN (Finance Best Practice Network), which doesn't get attention in the wider media is a terrific example of value delivery. Gathering SAPs top 40 business customers and creating a 'safe' community where they can explore issues of common interest is a great way to spread knowledge and understanding on topical issues such as governance.
I believe it will be in the co-merging of the large developer communities and the smaller end user interest groups where we will see the most interesting developments. This will emerge as each community recognises the mutual business benefits that can be derived from the cross fertilisation of ideas. At present, that's a nascent trend.
6. When Hugh MacLeod answered questions for this SAP Global Survey, he suggested, "ERP should be built around social media, not the other way around." Does that sound sensible to you? How do you picture such an app looking like to corporate customers?
Hugh is in the disruption business and I have no problem with that in appropriate circumstances. That's anathema to the average CIO who is interested in predictability and stability. What Hugh doesn't understand is that ERP is about transactional process control in complex environments. CIOs reading Hugh's statement will therefore dismiss it (and rightly) as marketing nonsense. Therefore, the notion that social media should be the starting point is interesting but isn't going to happen any time soon.
However - there are plenty of places where social media can have a positive impact. I'm thinking around the whole knowledge worker environment (blog/wiki/video), policy management (wiki/video), governance (blog/wiki) compliance (wiki) and design (blog/wiki/video), extended supply chain operations (blog/wiki/video/embedded spreadsheet). The BIG risk is where management tries to systemitise these activities. That's when you run into trouble because creativity and innovation go out the window. Light touch should be the mantra.
7. Scoble suggested that SAP could break through the historic barriers of slow adoption by incorporating one new "cool" social media app into its ERPsoftware. Is that feasible? How would it impact customers?
I'd argue that's already happened with SDN/BPX but it is early days and there is little evidence of financial impact. SAP is conflicted. The days of the big ticket bag carrier are not over but under severe pressure. When A1S comes out, I think we'll see a death battle over pricing in the enterprise space. SAP has to navigate a very careful course to ensure it can deliver on customer needs without cannibalising itself and giving institutional shareholders a fright. One way would be to go private. But there are other issues of greater importance. The reliance on old technologies (like 30+ years old) at premium prices isn't going to cut it for SAP, Oracle, IBM and others. Customers won't be going anywhere else soon but if CIOs want oxygen in their IT budgets for social media style projects, then these are areas that need addressing. And fast.
8. What are the biggest barriers to EU acceptance of social media?
- Bigger fish to fry. There are masses of cost issues that CIOs are wrestling with that put social media low down the list of priorities. That can allow for skunk works operations but that is regarded as high risk in many organisations.
- Awareness. Those of us interested in this area are a very tiny minority and while there is momentum for technologies like wiki there is way too much consulting BS being talked. Consultants need to recognise this impacts them and surrounding stuff like blog/wiki with methodologies based on old style command and control are guaranteed ways to keep them busy and enterprises poor.
- Fear of experimentation and abuse. Studies have shown there isn't a recorded case of abuse. the cost of failure is almost zero and failing projects are easy to spot. This stuff isn't going to stop and it isn't going away so my take is: get over it, get on with it.
- Fear of sharing. I can't understand why people don't recognise that it is not the information itself that has value but what people do with it. When that penny drops, then I suspect the walled gardens surrounding otherwise useful material will collapse and we will see intelligent use of mashups to deliver value across the enterprise eco-systems. Some way off but it will happen.
9. Additional comments
I don't think we've even started to scratch the surface of the potential for social media/computing. Recently I've been watching the Facebook phenomenon. To me that's a v 1.0 platform and distribution mechanism that an SAP could readily adapt and make viral. I get excited about the potential but appreciate it is foreign territory for many. For me, a good indicator is that Zoho has done some lightweight Facebook integrations. Again a version 1.0 but an indicator nonetheless. I can only imagine the Duet folk are having kittens. -:) And then there is video. Loic LeMeur is doing cool stuff in that area I'm not allowed to talk about. Maybe you can winkle it out of him.
And while we're on the topic of Loic - get SAP to sponsor LeWeb 3. That would have an impact.
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