Posts Tagged Enterprise 2.0
School’s not quite out, but the results are in.
Posted by actiancefederal in Employee Behavior, Enterprise 2.0, Malware, New Internet, Social Networking, Trends, Unified Communications, Web 2.0, Web Security on September 21, 2011
You know that there’s been a seismic shift in the US Government’s communications strategy when guidelines are published by the government for agencies about how they can adopt social networks to deliver a better customer experience.
We can all applaud the good – when the magnitude 5.8 earthquake shook the East Coast in August, the Department of Homeland security was quick to tweet advice on getting in touch with loved ones via social networks, eschewing phone lines which were getting clogged.
But before we get carried away, we need to put this success in perspective.
Just last week, news was released that Air Force One’s flight plans were inadvertently leaked when a Japanese air traffic controller decided to post them on his blog to show off to his friends.
Who needs Wikileaks when you have to contend with the foibles of your own staff?
The threat of malware infection continues to loom large, as our own Jae found out to his chagrin.
There is no time to be complacent. This is why we’ve knuckled down and begun the process of testing our platform for federal government usage. We’ve kicked of with subjecting Vantage and Unified Security Gateway (USG) to the rigorous tests conducted by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) Labs.
It is with a mixture of post-exam relief, pleasure and pride that we can reveal that (drumroll please…) we have met the initial requirements for Common Criteria IA SL2 and The Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2.
The process is by no means over, but we’re certainly well on the way, but it’s another confirmation that Federal Agencies can rest assured that our solutions are robust, enterprise-ready and will do what they say on the ‘can’.
Regardless of media – it could be Jabber, Microsoft Lync or Facebook – we can monitor, track and archive content to protect against unsanctioned disclosures and security threats.
What is YOUR federal agency doing with regard to new communications modalities?
The House is on fire. We don’t need no water, just some Skype.
Posted by actiancefederal in Compliance, Enterprise 2.0, New Internet, Social Networking, Trends, Unified Communications, Web 2.0, Web Security on September 15, 2011
Wow, for you naysayers out there that think the government is slow, archaic, and behind-the-times, you may have to reconsider your position. The House of Representatives has OK’d the use of Skype and ooVoo within its hallowed halls. Up to now, security concerns had impeded adoption of these popular Internet phone and video conferencing tools, respectively, but now that those concerns have been addressed, the House is ready to move forward on its plan to improve communications and transparency with its constituents.
In these tough economic times where government budgets are strapped, leveraging technology solutions that tout cost efficiencies are gaining traction. Moreover, technological enhancements and plentiful bandwidth are driving the government to look at other real-time alternatives. Applications like Skype and ooVoo allow for virtual town hall meetings, facilitate responding to constituent inquiries, and obviate the need for travel in many instances. The net effect is a fluid, cost-effective communications channel between representatives and their constituents.
Now, the House had every right to take its time in blessing the use of Skype and ooVoo. Security concerns are justified, given the abundance of horror stories involving security breaches in government and other industries as well. The problem with social media and other Web 2.0 applications is that their ubiquity opens whole new vectors for malware and other types of evil to infiltrate the corporate or government network. The proliferation of content on these types of sites is mind-boggling – photos, videos, wikis, blogs, tweets, and the list goes on and on. But, each one of these types of content can be a springboard for malware.
Given the viral nature of social media and the breadth of the social graph, it doesn’t take much for a virus to spread. A simple, innocent click on a link to your friend’s supposed Morocco vacation pictures may not yield camel pictures, but rather, expletives flowing out of your mouth when you see the Blue Screen of Death.
That’s why you see so many security software and hardware vendors in the marketplace. They’re there for a reason. Not the sexiest technology, but definitely critical to your sanity and to the long-run viability of your company, or in the case of this blog entry, the House of Representatives. Having security systems and policies in place to control the glut of Web 2.0-type applications out there (Skype and ooVoo are just two of the thousands) is downright essential.
Without granular controls of social media, instant messaging, video conferencing, and the like, safely managing that fluid communications channel between government and the constituents becomes that much more difficult. Throw into the mix potential national security implications and one can see why security breaches aren’t taken lightly in government circles.
So, bravo to the House for giving the green light to Skype and ooVoo. Now, I can Skype my congresswoman to fix that pothole in front of my driveway.
Embracing Social Business
Posted by SarahActiance in Enterprise 2.0, New Internet, Social Networking, Trends, Uncategorized, Web 2.0 on September 12, 2011
Not long ago we blogged about the proliferation of mobile devices being used by the next generation of consumers to access the new Internet and its impact on financial services. This was the topic of a recent webinar and accompanying white paper from Forrester Research, and it’s a growing concern for all businesses – how to create safe, effective marketing programs using the latest social media platforms that drive business in a measureable way.
I recently chatted with Erin Traudt, Research Director at IDC and their resident guru on all things social (Michael Fauscette , you’ll have to forgive me, I’m not lessening your guruness with that comment 
) , about the marketing capabilities we recently introduced in Socialite Engage. Erin pointed us to two public Insight reports on the IDC web site that define a new kind of Social Business Framework:
“The democratization and socialization of media through the social web has turned anyone into a publisher, reporter and/or critic – subsequently redefining influence. The social customer, employee, supplier and partner each have a voice and the means to use that voice at scale. And people are listening.”
Source: IDC
IDC’s definition of social business is companies using emerging technologies (like Web 2.0 and social media) to make cultural and organizational changes to drive business. According to the IDC report, “Social Business Framework: Using People as a Platform to Enable Transformation,” there are four steps to implementing a social business:
- Identify the market factors driving the need for change to social business. Market factors can include such things as competition, brand awareness, customer behavior, and the economy,
- Recognize social objectives you want to accomplish and why they matter. Social objectives are linked to business goals and include such elements as customer engagement, employee empowerment, partner enablement, and supplier engagement.
- Establish social outputs to support those social objectives. These are the mechanisms you use to share, such as tweets and Facebook posts. Content creation democratizes the process so customers and partners can join the conversation, and you have to consider your community as part of social output, i.e. those individuals who are connected in some way, ideally around your brand.
- Determine the platforms and applications you need to achieve your desired social outputs. These are the software tools that you need to build, deploy, and manage social applications, such as Jive, Lotus Connections, and Facebook, and, of course, tools like Socialite Engage.
As part of your social business strategy, you need to adopt business tools that measure the impact of social output and social media platforms. According to the IDC Insight report Determining the Value of Social Business ROI: Myths Facts and Potentially High Returns, most organizations don’t even know how to calculate ROI for traditional projects, let alone for social business. Identifying metrics to monitor social media engagement allows companies to optimize customer acquisition, decrease customer churn, and create upsell and cross sell opportunities. But to do that, you need to be able to gain control of your social media program and measure the effectiveness and ROI of social media programs.
According to the latest Social Business Survey from IDC, there are five primary reasons that end users use social media as part of social business:
- Acquire knowledge and ask questions;
- Share knowledge and contribute ideas;
- Communicate with customers;
- Create awareness about company product or service; and
- Communicate with internal colleagues.
As part of your social business strategy, you need to think of the impact your social business program has on your social media audience in terms of:
- Reach: How extensive is your online footprint and are you being effective at building an online following?
- Impact: What part of your online community is active, pay attention to your products and messages, and influencing others?
- Yield: How much revenue or new business can you link to active members of your social media community?
These are all factors we took into consideration in when we designed Socialite Engage. We understand that for certain industries it’s essential to not only promote conversation with preapproved content, but to understand how that content performs in achieving social business goals, and which channels are yielding the desired results.
As a firm, as a business, to gauge the effectiveness of a social business initiative, you have to be able to track aggregated engagement across different social media platforms, determine who your key influencers are, and how those influencers are affecting your bottom line. And that’s what we’ve done with Socialite Engage. We’ve designed the means to identify and track key connections into Socialite Engage, and ways to track their influence. We’ve also built in analytics to determine how those connections are affecting business, which channels and messages are having the greatest impact on sales, lead generation, or whatever initiative you have determined will drive your social business.
Embracing social business isn’t just about improving customer relations and increasing sales, it’s about changing the very DNA of your people and the organization. Developing a social business strategy means empowering your people, your customers, your partners, and your suppliers with new tools that can impact your brand and reputation, as well as your bottom line. As a result, you need new tools to monitor the conversations and measure their impact. That’s what our next generation of social business engagement tools is all about.
Follow my experiences in beta testing Socialite Engage – as I endeavor to change the social behavior and the results of social collaboration of Actiance team members, partners and customers. You can watch it all here – at blog.actiance.com (or follow us on Twitter @SarahActiance and @Actiance)
Social Media and Cloud Security, are they on the new Federal CIO’s radar?
Posted by actiancefederal in Malware, Social Networking, Unified Communications, Web 2.0, Web Security on August 8, 2011
Last week, it was announced that Steven VanRoekel would be replacing Vivek Kundra as the CIO at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). It’s a high-profile position that essentially puts VanRoekel in charge of the federal government’s IT budget – currently about $80 billion a year. A tidy sum of money.
So, as VanRoekel assumes his new role, all eyes will be focused on how he handles the projects he’s inheriting from Kundra as well as new initiatives. Of the former, issues such as data center consolidation and the “cloud” are top-of-mind. Recently, much of the buzz, both in the government and in the private sector, has revolved around Web 2.0 and social media. However, they’re just two components of an overall security strategy.
VanRoekel must also take into consideration other types of application that factor into a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. These days, hackers are pretty sophisticated and are quite adept at exploiting encrypted traffic to pass along viruses or other types of malware. For instance, unified communications (UC) platforms, such as Jabber, Microsoft OCS and Lync, and IBM Sametime, all enable federation, which is the ability to communicate with others who are not members of your UC community. The danger here is federating with outside networks that may present unknown risks, like viruses, hackers, enemies mining for confidential information, etc.
The same analogy holds for the “cloud” initiative. Cloud computing is all the rage, but there’s no shortage of companies and government agencies that are incredibly leery of turning over key computing processes and applications to the cloud. Security is almost always the first issue mentioned when talking to skeptics of the cloud. Multi-tenancy (i.e., sharing physical appliances that have been logically partitioned), data storage off-premises, and the relatively short history of this computing paradigm send shivers down the spines of the most experienced IT practitioners.
With the Internet being a global resource, the potential scope of security breaches is immense. Sophisticated hackers might reside in the US, China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea; you just never know. It is under this backdrop that VanRoekel will have to drawn upon his experience in the private and public sectors to devise a strategy addressing all of these security concerns. A daunting challenge for sure, but absolutely attainable, given today’s technology.
Wouldn’t you agree?
Sweeping Up the Pieces of the Splinternet
Posted by SarahActiance in Compliance, Enterprise 2.0, Financial Services, FINRA, New Internet, Social Networking, Trends on July 29, 2011
For some time now we’ve used the tagline, “Enable the New Internet,” and it’s amazing how that tagline continues to resonate. The Internet is continually reinventing itself, which means it’s always new. The latest wrinkle is the proliferation of so many new handheld devices to access the Web. Not long ago, you needed a PC or (horrified intake of breath) some kind of wired (!) device to effectively access the web. Now any smart phone or pad computer can deliver wireless access to the social network of your choice, which just adds another layer of complexity to social media monitoring and compliance.
We recently hosted a webinar with Forrester Research on Maximizing the Social Opportunities for Financial Institutions, and the discussion was partly based on a new research report from Forrester Research, “Mobile and Social Technologies Come Late to Wealth Management.” According to Bill Doyle, vice president and principal analyst of Forrester and author of the report, the latest Internet evolution is giving rise to a new phenomenon that Forrester has dubbed the “splinternet.”
What’s driving this splintering effect is the proliferation of both social media use and the new generation of wireless connected devices. Facebook now has 700 million, Twitter is at 200 million, LinkedIn has 100 million members, and YouTube gets 2 billion views per day. And the new generation of users is accessing social media using smart phones, tablet computers, and e-readers. As Bill noted in the webinar:
Mobile devices have taken over the world. There are more mobile phones than cars, credit cards, or PCs. The mobile screen is the one that we all have with us – most people even sleep with their mobile phone by their bedside. And the mobile market is highly fragmented by devices, user interfaces, and operating systems. The mobile Internet has really arrived delivering mobile data because of fast broadband provides good coverage, mobile handsets are delivering a competent Internet experience, and Internet brands are placing mobile first.
Bill predicts that the splinternet effect will be the norm for at least the next five years.
According to the Forrester report, wealth management firms and their ilk have been largely insulated from the splinternet effect, since their target clientele are older and don’t gravitate toward social networks or new hardware platforms, such as mobile devices. Half of Gen Y users are connecting to the Web monthly via the Internet where there is only one in one in eight older baby boomers use mobile hardware to access the Internet, and only one in 14 percent of seniors use mobile Web access each month. To compete, wealth management firms need to start adopting digital technologies to meet their customers’ needs.
For the old school financial planners, it’s old world views versus new technology. To compete in the new world order, even highly regulated firms will need to follow the technology:
- Younger users are leading indicators of digital technology, and the platform du jour is clearly mobile. Generation Y has adopted mobile, and Gen X is closing fast.
- The baby boomers who make up the bulk of today’s wealth management clientele are becoming more active. They are a little farther behind on the adoption curve, but they are coming up quickly as the new users of mobile technology to access data and assets.
- The younger generations don’t abandon their channel preferences as they age, or as they accumulate wealth. As the younger users become more prosperous, they will continue to use those channels that are popular today – social media and mobile platforms.
So this means financial service companies need to adapt or lose out. The mobile infrastructure is in place and growing and the market is going mobile. Those brokerage firms and regulated companies taking the lead are embracing both social media and mobile platform because that’s where their clients are. As Doyle points out, it’s not about technology, but it’s about people. Social media provides a means to connect with clients in a new way, building intimacy, and deriving referrals. Through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media platforms you learn about clients’ life changes, such as wedding, graduations, and births, that direct affect financial strategies. And you can connect to clients at crucial moments – the more you connect, the more loyalty you promote.
And as the regulators continue to upgrade their policies to encompass new technologies, as with FINRA 10-06, those being regulated have to create a balance between embracing new technology like mobile to keep pace with their clients, and placating the regulatory watchdogs. It’s enabling those new technologies in a safe, compliant fashion that keeps Actiance in business. We keep track of social media usage no matter what the platform.
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My Thoughts on Google+ (Part 2): Challenges
Posted by Jae Kim in Social Networking, Uncategorized on July 29, 2011
This is part 2 of my thoughts on Google+. In the last post, I discussed the innovative features in Google+ project that will likely spur other social networking sites to adapt and change. In this post, I want to touch on some challenges that Google+ has to deal with to become a viable Facebook and Twitter alternative.
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| There is a reason why group is missing from above; because Google+ has no group |
Absence of Group
There is no group in Google+. At least the group in the sense that we all understand from Facebook and LinkedIn.
Let me explain. When we think of a group, we think of them as clique where we share information with everyone in the group and members in the group to be able to respond to other members post. In other words, group exists as an entity. Group mailing alias, Facebook group and LinkedIn interest groups are good examples. A group gets created by members, and everyone either joins or leaves the group, shares or does not share updates in the group. Whatever update gets posted on group page is expected to be shared with everyone else in the group because group members can access the group page.
It almost sounds redundant to explain group in this way. It is because we grew so accustomed to group membership and group sharing to happen in a symmetric way. What I share in a group is visible to all other members in the group, and what everyone else shares in the group is visible to me. Group is a separate entity that people can join or leave.
Not so in Google+. In Google+ we create our own “circle” to categorize people into different buckets. But my circles won’t be visible to you, your circle is not visible to me. All I know is you have categorized me somehow, but I have no idea whether you put me on your ‘tech junkies’ circle or ‘NPR listeners’ circle. Circle only exists in someone’s perspective. There is no separate entity called group. I cannot join a group to share things in the group and expect to get a feedback from other members of the group.
This creates subtle but not so intuitive situation. I could be sharing updates with my ‘tech junkies’, but as recipient you will not have any idea of what context I am sharing them. If you receive technology news from ‘tech junkies’ group, you’ll know that people are talking about technology.
In real life, this out-of-context sharing almost never happens. Depending on time and place, people talk about different things. We humans are automatically aware of our surroundings and know what is appropriate and what is not. When we get a message without context of group, about the only context that’s available in cyber world, we don’t know how to react to the message because who else received the message and in what context.
Because Google+ is not honoring this physical contextual paradigm, I see a big challenge in overcoming the lack of groups. And I’m not the only one noticing this challenge.
Missing Webpage Paradigm
A related point to absence of group is missing Webpage paradigm. There is no Wall page in Google+. You cannot visit someone else’s Wall and leave a message to the user like in Facebook.
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| Saidur (Cy) Hossain got it right; there is no Profile Wall in Google+ (His Google+ crash course in 49 slides is worth a view) |
This is because Google+ is built on sharing messages based on your personal category called “circle”. It is almost like sending group email based on your own alias, and not having a webpage to have contextual conversation.
In the world of Facebook once you visit someone’s Wall page on Facebook, you are looking at everything about that user within privacy control allowed by the user. When you are on user’s Wall page (aka Profile Wall), you expect to see everything about the user and the page is dedicated place for the user. From this context, you immediately know that the message that you leave on the Wall is meant for the Wall’s owner. There is no question because you are posting a message on user’s Wall.
In Google+, there is no such context. There is no such page. When you visit Google+ page of a user, it may look like that user’s page, but in fact it doesn’t provide the features that you would expect from the user’s web page. Things that we come to expect such as what the user has been up to recently and leaving a message for the user are not available. To leave a message for the user in Google+, you have go back to your home page and type a message addressed to that user. This is like saying you can visit someone at his/her place, but you have to come back to your home and call them to talk about what you saw at the place. Bizarre.
This lack of webpage that represents a person creates a strange dissonance. Because there is no physical webpage to keep track of all conversations on a topic (lack of group webpage), it discourages people from sharing and commenting to a message and collaborating on a topic.
Terms of Use Enforcement
Partly because of all the hypes built by limited invite only release, Google+ is already starting to see many users who are bending and flexing the Terms. There are many thousands, if not more, business pages already created on Google+. Although Google came out and made public announcement discouraging people from creating business pages, people are already reserving the account names and getting the early start in setting up their presence in Google+. As of writing this article, Mashable and Ford, the two of early starters, already have 124,580 and 10,232 followers already (as of 7/27, it looks as though Mashable site has been shutdown by Google+).
It’s not just business folks jumping on the early-starter bandwagon. Hackers and other anonymous users with fake identities are creating Google+ accounts as well.
Challenge with this rapid expansion and everyone joining at once is rather subtle one. Google must be thrilled to see such enthusiastic responses from user communities, but at the same time trying to monitor and control the type of early adopters to maintain the quality of content posted.
After all social network, such as Google+, gets their content from users, and only way to quality control the content is to control the type of users and identities that are created in the network.
But at the same time Google must be careful not to over-enforce the policy. With the past weekend incident over shutting down many number of accounts, including early business accounts, anonymous and fake identity accounts, it looks like Google may be swinging too far to clamp down the illegitimate usage. Challenge for Google will be to strike the balance between fast growth and maintaining the quality of content shared on the network.
Despite all the challenges, Google+ looks like it has a real shot at becoming a major social network. It has clean and innovative UI/UX elements that makes it easy for new users to interact, and very clear privacy control on what you will share with whom. It also has clear mobile and location strategy to make it a compelling solution in the future. Plus, I would not discount the fact that most of us already have tons of Google product accounts that can be integrated into Google+ Project.
One thing is clear. Now users have one more place where they can connect with people. And that is good news for anyone who wants to connect with Lady Gaga.
Shorting stocks in their diapers
Posted by SarahActiance in Compliance, Enterprise 2.0, FINRA, Social Networking, Trends on June 30, 2011
19, 24, 25, 25, 21. No, these aren’t yesterday’s winning Powerball numbers, but rather, the ages of Zuckerberg, Brin, Page, Gates, and Jobs when they founded their companies (Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, respectively).
They may be the Titans of Tech, but they all have something else in common: they were all “kids” when they started their companies and they’re all pitching technologies that are now altering the wealth management landscape – social media and mobile.
It’s both fair and appropriate that I give credit to the statistics and information that I’m going to cite up front – you see the inspiration for this blog post came from a recent research paper written by Bill Doyle over at Forrester Research. Bill’s been doing some work recently in the area of Wealth Management and Social Technologies – and has published his findings (there’s more work coming out, too, so watch this space).
So back to the Titans of Tech… given that technological innovation seemingly is the province of “twenty-something” geeks and entrepreneurs, it should come as no surprise that it’s the younger folks leading the charge in the adoption of social media and the mobile Internet for wealth management. Specifically, it’s the Generation Y’ers (ages 18 to 30) that are driving the growth of mobile and social. Following close behind them are the Gen X’ers (ages 31 to 44), the Baby Boomers, and the Seniors – in that order.
But, even amongst the Seniors, 47% of this segment have at least one account with a social networking site. Furthermore, given that the Baby Boomers are the ones with the most investments, it’s not far off when social media and mobile will become the primary weapons for investment advisors to attract and retain clients. And, even among the Gen X’ers and Y’ers (the latter growing up with iPods and iPhones in their hands), as they accumulate wealth, they will continue to use the media with which they have grown the most accustomed – social and mobile.
So, all signs point to people of all ages increasingly turning to social and mobile to manage their money. That’s why wealth management firms are so keen to really understand the regulatory environment, or in the event there are no regulations, then to lobby for clearer guidance from the SEC and/or FINRA. Already, FINRA convened a task force in March of this year to assess what, if anything, needed to be updated on Regulatory Notice 10-06 (originally issued in January 2010).
The Forrester report goes into additional detail – and makes a number of suggestions for wealth management firms and what they should be doing. We’ve collaborated with Forrester to make a copy of this $399 value report available to you on a complimentary basis – and you can download a copy of it here. Stay tuned also and hear Bill Doyle speak in both New York and Boston alongside leading brand names in Financial Services on what’s going on in the social world and how you can best address it!
Are you socially mobile or stuck in a time lapse?
Posted by SarahActiance in Compliance, New Internet, Social Networking, Trends, Unified Communications, Web 2.0 on May 3, 2011
Most social media interaction relies on a fairly immediate response. A tweet has a half life of 3 hours for instance. Whether it’s responding to a customer query, discussing the latest piece of industry news with a partner or just a bit of friendly banter with colleagues, joining in the conversation an hour later can be an opportunity missed. It’s one of the reasons so many of us take our mobile or cell phone wherever we go. I might only be the other side of the office, but I can still respond instantly to something pertinent, without having to walk back to my desk.
Mobility has become an important part of our lives, but it has also added a complexity to the IT aspect of controlling data. A couple of years ago most enterprises standardised on PCs, laptops and mobiles. Today, users want to be able to choose not just the device that helps them do their job the best, but also the one they feel most comfortable using. Some prefer proper keyboards on their mobile, others like electronic; iPads are really popular with sales guys doing a lot of presentations, hated by others for their lack of true multi-tasking. Users even consider the personal aspects of their devices – can they continue reading the latest thriller on the commute to work, video conference with their family when away from home.
The end result for the poor IT guy is that he has to control and record information coming in and going out of the network through a myriad of devices. It’s one of the reasons we developed our technology to focus on the data stream to the social media application, not the method of communication. We already provide full support for recording conversations on Facebook and LinkedIn regardless of device and will be extending this to include Twitter in May.
However, providing support via a direct connection to the API of the social network is only half the story. It won’t surprise you to learn that social media sites are constantly updating their offering, but it may surprise you to know how many changes are made on a weekly basis that directly affect how third party systems such as those provided by Actiance function. The top three sites Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter average around twenty changes a week, though for a couple of weeks in March they nearly topped forty. Some are minor changes or tweaks, others have a significant impact in the way data is handled.
Fortunately, our close relationship with the major social networking sites means that we are frequently aware of changes ahead of time and can easily make any necessary changes to our own technology in response. In addition, the constant moving of goal posts is nothing new to Actiance. Our heritage in dealing with the instant messaging networks from way back when in the early 2000’s where the introduction of new networks and protocol changes were profuse has enabled us to develop processes that enable our research and technical team to react swiftly.
As the workforce becomes more mobile, the problem of different devices isn’t going to go away. The mobile phone was once touted as being the de-facto communications tool, but the impact of tablets has shown that this might not be the case. I can’t predict what I’ll be using in the future to communicate with customers, partners and colleagues, but I do know that a point solution for devices or specific applications to enable it isn’t the long term answer. A scalable platform that enables the secure, compliant use not just of social media, but UC and Web 2.0 is.
Keep It Simple, Stupid
Posted by nleong in Application Filtering, Compliance, Employee Behavior, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise IM, Malware, Unified Communications on February 24, 2011
We’ve all heard this saying before and it’s easy to get lost in the bewildering array of communications channels available to us. There’s the usual email, instant messaging networks (Yahoo!, Google Talk), peer-to-peer networks (Skype), enterprise IM applications (IBM Sametime, Microsoft Lync/OCS), and social networks (Facebook, Twitter). And these are just the big boys. There are literally thousands of IM, P2P, and social networks, in addition to those listed above.
To give you an idea of the bevy of tools out there, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) uses over 21 different email systems, but they’ve recently decided to award Microsoft a contract to provide cloud-based email, Web conferencing, IM, and collaboration solutions. Similarly, the US General Services Administration (GSA) awarded an email contract to Google. What this goes to show is that messaging in large organizations (in this case, it’s the government) is starting to move to the cloud as companies look for ways to streamline their messaging systems, improve efficiency, and cut costs.
What with all these communications options available to end users, it’s all too common for folks to use Facebook, Yahoo!, or Skype while they’re at work on company-issued computers. Oftentimes, individuals use a combination of Web 2.0 (think Facebook or Skype) and enterprise (think Microsoft Communicator or Cisco Jabber) applications. The problem with doing so is that it opens up new vectors for malware to invade the corporate network. In other words, there are far more avenues for evil to infiltrate the corporate network these days than ever before.
Thankfully, platforms like Actiance Vantage make it easier to manage the proliferation of communications tools within the enterprise. From blocking virus attacks to managing file transfers to logging and archiving of all IM activities, Vantages provides end-to-end security and compliance coverage for an organization’s unified communications.
We can all learn a lesson from the government contracts cited above. Long ridiculed for being the poster child of bureaucracy and antiquated computer systems, it must be saying something to have two large agencies moving their communications applications to the cloud. Looks like the US government has taken heed of that old KISS principle after all.
Enterprise productivity collaboration software gets a “face” lift
Posted by actiance in Enterprise 2.0, Social Networking, Trends, Web 2.0 on October 14, 2008
Most people would agree, and Robert Scoble probably said it best, enterprise software isn’t sexy. In fact, I’d understand if the words “extensible enterprise productivity suite” put you to sleep.
But what if I said a game-changing Web 2.0 entrepreneur and his star engineer are leaving Facebook to launch an extensible enterprise productivity suite. Are you a little more interested?
You should be. Since Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein announced they were leaving Facebook earlier this month, a buzz has been swirling around the Valley, and everywhere else, about what’s next. Why leave Facebook? THE hot property. To outsiders it might seem like the logical path would be to simply expand Facebook with this new enterprise offering, but both have said moving Facebook off course would distract from the company’s mission (making the world more open through social software) and would not be good for the company. They claim the new project requires being built around a singular focus, “with the goals of efficiency and group collaboration embedded deeply into its DNA from day 1.”
They also see the new venture as complimentary to Facebook. Using some of the same authentication technology and user experience modeling they hope the new products will become as familiar to people’s work life as Facebook.com is to their social lives.
Interesting. Do they mean to imply that Facebook is only meant for social/personal use? At FaceTime the only trend we see more than companies investing in enterprise collaboration and productivity suites, is that these applications are rarely just used for one purpose – business or personal – but for both. Another common trend…no one application rules the roost, enterprise-grade collaborative suites are deployed alongside consumer and other enterprise-class applications all of the time. And our customers continue to tell us this. Facebook has already been adopted by individuals and organizations for collaboration, networking and information sharing. I suspect it will remain in place as a tool for business, even as its extensible enterprise brother joins the family – one very large, loud family of big company competitors including Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco, to name a few.
This probably comes as no surprise, but seeing as FaceTime offers solutions that help manage and secure unified communications and collaborative suites, we like enterprise software. I’ll admit it’s not Angelina Jolie sexy, but it’s certainly not boring. I think it will be interesting to see what two guys with a consumer-based social networking background do for enterprise software and the collaboration market. If you’re questioning whether they hitched their wagons to the wrong star, you might consider what Hutch Carpenter had to say:
Rosenstein and Moskovitz are deeply ingrained at Facebook. They’ve been there for a while, and have seen it blossom as the go-to social network. They’ve were there for the heady valuation of $15 billion. The pre-IPO company still has work in front of it, but surely it’s pretty interesting.
So what do they do? They quit to go start a BORING enterprise software company.
What could this possibly tell us?
If you read the full post you’ll learn Carpenter’s with me on this one – enterprise software, not so boring. So what will the Rosenstein/Moskovitz decision tell us? I don’t know yet, but we’re listening.
