Burton Group Survey: Enterprise not quite grasping Social Networking

Apr 3, 2009 by Dan Taylor    2 Comments    Posted under: Productivity, Social Media, Technology

In a recent report published by the Burton Group, analysts’ found that attempts to replicate social networking (facebook) and their associated tools (twitter) aren’t really taking off within the corporate structure.

The report, social networking in the enterprise is based on detailed interviews with 21 companies spanning a wide variety of industries including utilities, consumer goods, technology, and finance.

With the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston bearing down on us, this report from Burton couldn’t have come at a better time, as businesses are struggling to not only understand, but utilize and maximize the technologies potential.  The Enterprise 2.0 Conference is a gathering of tech vendors that create social applications similar to facebook, twitter, etc., but specifically tailored for business usage.  In addition to the old standbys such as IBM (Lotus Connections) and Microsoft (SharePoint), new players including Socialtext, Jive, and Six Apart are slated to be in attendance.

But according to Mike Gotta, a principal analyst with the Burton Group, it’s not a problem with vendors’ product offerings that are the stumbling stone, but rather the corporate culture itself.  Gotta says that the challenge is in addressing specific generational differences, and getting them all on the same page.  Specifically Baby Boomers have demonstrated that they’re not inclined to embrace social technologies in the workplace (although they’re flocking to them from a consumer perspective).

According the Burton survey, the problem may not lie with the Boomers, but rather in how their employer presenting the tools to them.  Many companies have used social networking tools to share expertise, collaborate, and connect with others, especially in multi-location global enterprises.

“Some vendors are saying employees will go in and naturally fill these enterprise social networking profiles out, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true,” Gotta says. “If you’re an employee, you have questions. Why should you maintain it? What are you going to do with it? Those questions still need to answered.”

What else does Gotta see holding corporation adoption back?

• Creating a business case is difficult for people who don’t understand the technologies or have rigid ways of defining their success. Your CFO might want hard ROI, which social tools have a difficult time showing because they aren’t necessarily replacement tools. So, for instance, if people begin trading information on a wiki, that maintains a document’s changes in real-time. This is generally better than sending around reply-all e-mails with messy attachments. But while you know the wiki has helped your collaboration efforts, it might be hard to figure an exact dollar amount in savings since e-mail isn’t being replaced. “For that person that who wants blood on paper ROI , it’s a hard conversation,” Gotta says.

• Getting the proper players involved. Gotta says it’s essential to have a presence from HR in getting these technologies off the ground. If, for instance, you want to turn your corporate intranet into a social network with employee profile pages, you need to help people feel comfortable to share and know the ground rules. If people feel awkward about inputting information, it’s as good as dead. In addition, stakeholders (often department heads) must show they believe in the adoption of the technology by using it themselves and encouraging adoption. If they use it, it’s not guaranteed their employees will use it, but it’s more likely.

• Traditional corporate communications structures and etiquette. More old, conservative organizations communicate in a top-down fashion, which runs counter to social networks, where people collectively weigh in and discuss issues. Burton quoted one participant who noted the following: “We have a classic company — we communicate ‘at’ people rather than ‘with’ them.” On the upside, the proponents of enterprise social networking say that the technologies, if used effectively, can uproot that type of communications model.

TSheets takes the tough sheet out of your time sheet

Nov 21, 2008 by Dan Taylor    4 Comments    Posted under: Technology

A while back, before the great database debacle, I won a writing contest with TSheets, which ultimately led to my employment with TSheets.  I got an email the other day from a reader that was asking what happened to the story.  I promised to re-post the original article (dated April 30th, 2008), but I also want to mention that if you’ve not heard about TSheets’ Freshbooks integration (certain passages written by yours truly), go give it a read.  Pretty cool stuff for small business owners and self employed professionals.  Without further adieu:

TSheets takes the tough sheet out of your time sheet

3000 BC: Fred Flintstone ends day by listening for high pitched squawking bird. Quarry Foreman spends hours pouring over timestones at the end of the week.

1634: Bells signal farmers to and fro the fields. Hungover bell maid causes hours of lost wages as farmers stand poised at edge of fields.

1868: Steam whistles pierce the industrial landscape. Drought results in days of lost productivity.

1913: IBM introduces the first ‘Punch Clock’. Band Aids become standard working apparel.

2008: Tsheets simplifies your life and brings employee time tracking to a new millennium.

How many times has the wife/husband/significant other heard, “Babe…I’m so right there with you….just as soon as I get these time sheets calculated.”? How many times have you missed the game because, let’s be honest, assembling timesheets for payroll, while important, is as about as exciting as watching the grass grow?

Tsheets was born from the best stuff on earth: necessity. Whether you’re tracking 5 employees or 5000, tsheets is a simple to use, LAMP based app that can keep track of all your employees.

Running a single office? Keep track of all your core employees, consultants, developers, freelancers, etc. all in one location. You can even monitor real time. Running multiple locations across the city, state, country, world? Man, you should own stock in Excedrin, as that has nightmare written all over it. Fear not young captain of industry…tsheets can take the tough sheet out of your time sheet.

Employees forget to clock in/clock out (when…when dear lord will they learn)? No problem, anyone you grant admin rights to can clock an employee in/out at any time. What about the subcontractors I’ve got running the electrical today? Bossman got a blackberry (and you KNOW he does) or other web-enabled device? No problem, give him the URL, and he can clock in/out from anywhere in the world. Better yet, your code ninjas strutting around with their new iPhone? Tsheets has developed the TGadget that not only works as a Google widget, but functions flawlessly with an iPhone. What about that hacker we just hired to test our security features, I just have a feeling he’s going to change the clock time on his home machine, and cheat me outta 20 hours of ‘work’ while he’s off fragging somewhere. Consider that hacker PWND, ‘cause all times are stored in centrally in UTC time.

Whether you’re running a tiny (read self employed) business, or charting your way to the stars (read the guy in the armani), if you’re dealing with ye old adage, ‘time is money’, tsheets is a product you can’t afford to be without.

For more on TSheets, their products and services, check ‘em out at TSheets.com.

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