I have admired the capabilities within Socialtext for some time. It was one of the early enterprise 2.0 providers, well before the term was coined. They began with a wiki base and have added capability over time to build a comprehensive platform. A couple of years ago they added Socialtext Signals, one of the first enterprise micro-blogging tools. A wrote about them a year ago on this blog (see Socialtext Adds Micro-messaging and Goes Mobile). Recently, I spoke with their CEO, Eugene Lee, on their latest offerings.
Eugene said that when Socialtext Signals and its microblogging capability, was introduced in 2008 the focus was on integration from the start. They were likely the first to provide a microblogging capability within a collaboration suite and now many of the others have made this move. Socialtext wanted to enable more than water cooler chat. They wanted make it easy to create activity feeds with a specific focus like a project.
As I wrote in my 2010 interview with Ross Mayfield, it is fully integrated with the complete Socialtext platform. You can filter activities by people or the type of event. Events within other systems such as CRM tools can be included in the activity stream through the Socialtext REST API. This is an excellent feature as it can avoid the information silos that can develop with independent enterprise 2.0 tools. I recently added in a post, Putting Social Media to Work, this integration is what enterprise 2.0 needs to do to move beyond Web 2.0 in the enterprise.
The platforms that Socialtext can easily integrate with include SharePoint and Salesforce.com. These are good choices. In my view SharePoint, and other document management systems, should be treated like other enterprise applications of record in the same way as an ERP or CRM system is being treated. Socialtext can then help increase engagement with these systems. As Eugene said, it is people who do the work so you need to push social tools more into the workflow where people actually work..
Eugene added that organizations need to enable people who are not normally working in an enterprise app such as a CRM system to get involved to bring their expertise to bear on the issues at hand. I think this is great. It was the vision some of us had in the early days on knowledge management but did not have the tools for. Now you can bring issues form the CRM tool into Socialtext to generate more engagement and more focus. You can also attach metadata to the issue as it enters the activity stream, to instantaneously provide more context, and further enhance this focus.
This increased connection and engagement can pay dividends. Eugene mentioned how the customer service department of an accounting consulting firm has cut in half the time it takes to respond to difficult customer questions since implementing Socialtext. In another example, a UK railroad has significantly reduced delays in getting the right equipment to the right location by making the right people aware of the problems earlier.
Some firms are now deploying Socialtext as the start page on their intranet with Signals in the forefront. You can also add Google gadgets to the intranet through Socialtext. This deployment has increased intranet usage and made it more focused on work issues. Socialtext operates in a SaaS model with the ability to have private hosting within and outside the enterprise.
Socialtext 5.0 is about to be released. It includes a simplified user experience, as well as several functional enhancements including a new editor, task management, page creation and tracking capabilities, as well as a theme selector that enables the administrative user to quickly and easily customize and brand their environment.
They also announced the availability of Socialtext Radar, a people recommendation engine that allows employees to create rich profiles by describing their experience, interests, passions and other configurable dimensions, and uses that data to identify the most relevant people to connect with and solve business challenges together in real-time.
I really like their focus on integration and their emphasis on connecting with work processes. It is great to see Socialtext continue to evolve in the right directions.
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