Archive for September, 2010
by Bill Ives
September 27, 2010 at 3:03 pm · Filed under
Web 2.0
Cisco offers a Collaboration Services Group that not tied to Cisco products. It helps clients with a vendor independent approach. Mark Eggleston, a member of this group I met at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference sent me a useful white paper by one of his colleagues, Joe Moran, Transforming Collaboration through Strategy and Architecture. The paper does not reference any Cisco products and is written to promote “an appreciation that technology is simply an enabler of collaboration, not the genesis of it.”
I found it full of good advice and very helpful for framing an enterprise collaboration effort. This is important since, as the paper mentions, Gartner predicts that through 2012 over 70 percent of these efforts will fail. Clearly help is needed. The paper begins with four trends that impact collaboration on an enterprise scale: borderless enterprises, workplace mobility, consumerization of IT, and information proliferation. In the latter case by 2020 digital data will grow to 44 times larger than it was in 2009. This is not surprising as I heard elsewhere that in 2009 more content was created than in the history of content and that the same thing had happen the year before. So what can we do?
Most of what needs to be done is non-technical which was also a theme at the Enterprise 2.0 conference. Joe provides four key levers: strategy based on business issues, not technology, flexible architectural frameworks that can evolve with the organization, consideration of culture, and clear governance. While these are good practices that have been around for a while, they are no less important now. User adoption is a key success measure as the value of collaboration increase with the number of users.
Joe offers a detailed and comprehensive holistic collaboration architect that I will not attempt to convey here but it made sense to me. One of the issues I found helpful was the distinction between collaboration-enabled applications and collaboration-integrated applications. The former provide collaboration capabilities within the context of existing applications and likely require little training and have less adoption issues. The latter are completely new applications created through mashups. The adoption curve is higher here but the impact may also be more meaningful. Part of the strategy development process is to determine which of these options works best in what context. Joe goes on to suggest that planners ask if collaboration capabilities be exposed or embedded within other applications or services.
by Bill Ives
September 23, 2010 at 3:55 am · Filed under
Web 2.0
Coveo currently has a three-part product strategy. There is the core search platform, Coveo Enterprise Search 6.2, the company’s enterprise-grade information access solution, used by the likes of Lockheed Martin, GEICO and YUM! Brands; Coveo Expresso (see my post: Coveo Provides Free Entry Level Enterprise Search With Coveo Expresso) for small and mid-sized businesses, and its Customer Information Access Solutions, used by organizations with knowledge-intensive customer support needs, like CA Technologies and Quantum. The latter was first launched in October 2009 and version 2.0 came out this summer. I recently spoke with Louis Tetu, Rich Tessier, and Diane Berry, of Coveo about this comprehensive offering.
The Customer Information Access Solutions (CIAS) are a set of individual, but related, extensions of the core platform that address specific business issues. They are built with concept of “stop moving data” in mind. Companies spend large sums of money and too much time trying to take data from multiple sources and attempting to put it in one place for easier access. With Coveo’s unified index approach you do not need to move this data since it can be accessed from its original location. This can include emails, documents, CRM apps, databases, knowledge bases, social media, Web content, and more.
There are three interrelated concepts here that I like: focused business apps built on search, single point of information access, and the dynamic mashup of information to fit specific user needs. These are part of the foundation for an effective enterprise 2.0.
We first discussed CIAS for Customer 360 that provides analytics dashboards. It provides comprehensive account information in a single view, bringing in relevant data from multiple sources. Coveo comes with many out-of-the-box connecters to sources such as Sharepoint, Salesforce.com, Jive, and Atlassian. Others can be quickly created if necessary. These content sources are combined into a single index for unified access. This allows the user to easily refine your searches and narrow the target data set rather than having to operate within the constraints of the data architecture. In addition you can consolidate and correlate content through mashups and monitor content to get up with essential information. Below is a screen shot of customer account metrics.
In addition, there is Coveo CIAS for Contact Centers that provides agent support through the same core capabilities in Customer 360 including unified access. Often contact center agents have to sort through multiple systems with different search capabilities and interfaces. I remember being told by an agent that one of the core skills was engaging in entertaining chat with the customer while they waded through the many sources to find answers. Below is a sample screen shot for a CSR.
Coveo CIAS also includes Customer Self-Service with a similar robust set of capabilities. The interface and content is a subset of the contact center application to achieve consistency, another move I like. There is contextually relevant guided navigation to reduce drop-offs and increase self-service.
To further support monitoring and continuous improvement there is Coveo Usage Analytics that compiles and presents all user interactions with the CIAS solution. You can see top queries, documents, users, and various user behaviors. Managers can see trends content gaps, and other useful insights. You can see a sample screen from the Usage Analytics below.
Louis mentioned the customer example of Computer Associates that has rolled out the Coveo platform to its 1600 agents. Since then CA has achieved a 10% increase in customer self-service satisfaction, a 50% reduction in case resolution time, and they have deflected 10% more calls to self-service, hitting about 50,000 queries a day with a response time of 0.2 seconds. I can believe these results as I have seen similar effects when contact center support tools are enhanced.
Companies first implemented knowledge base solutions to assist contact center agents. These offered some help and I was involved in a number of them. However, it required the creation of yet again another information source for agents to content with and it significantly increased the development time and cost. Now this effort can be bypassed with a unified access solution such as Coveo CIAS. This is truly a break through in information access. I think that Coveo was right to target contact center support since the ROI here is huge as the CA results demonstrate. At the same time there are many other applications that can benefit from this approach. It is at the core of enterprise 2.0.
by Bill Ives
September 20, 2010 at 3:42 am · Filed under
Web 2.0
I first covered NetBase on this blog in June (see NetBase Provides Next Generation Semantic Technology for Brand Monitoring and Understanding) and was impressed with their capabilities then. Recently, I spoke to Jonathan Spier, NetBase CEO, about some of their latest moves and continue to be impressed. They are supporting a number of use cases including: market research, brand management, advertising, PR, customer service, and sales, anywhere that social media insight discovery is required.
Jonathan said they are continuing to work on social media analysis. For example, their Brand Passion Index combines the concept of passion with sentiment to create 2 x 2 chart such as the one shown below that shows several TV news outlets. This Brand Passion Index has created a lot of interest and they are providing new ones on a regular basis. Here is an example of their word cloud visualization that shows positive and negative themes connected to a product or topic.
To determine the passion measure they look at the language to determine the intensity reflected through the words. They start with differences such as like versus love, dislike versus hate but they refine this through more sophisticated linguistic analysis. NetBase has a team of eight linguists at the Ph. D. level leading the creation of these measures and algorithms. The results for these measures and others are created dynamically without the need for any pre-configuration or taxonomy development. This allows you to better find new issues that you did not anticipate.
Some of the new features include the ability to explain pronouns such as “it” indicating what they refer to. I especially liked their comparisons of how different brands are discussed on the Web. You can pick a topic and the top five comparisons related to that topic are dynamically created as shown below.
You can also manually create comparisons and compare sentiment on competing products such as shown below.
This can certainly be addictive. NetBase has picked up a number of customers since our last conversation. I asked Jonathan what were the biggest barriers they faced to growth. He said the first was simply getting the word out and they are working on this. Second, there remain some companies who question the value of social media monitoring but this is a decreasing number. NetBase is increasing its partnerships with consulting firms to both help get the word out and to address any lingering doubts about the value of social media. I continue to be impressed with their capabilities and look forward to seeing their next moves.
by Bill Ives
September 14, 2010 at 3:49 am · Filed under
Web 2.0
According to a new Forrester report, The Next Wave Of Office Productivity by Sheri McLeish with Matthew Brown and Joseph Dang, Microsoft Office continues to dominate both in the enterprise and at home to no surprise. However, changes are affecting enterprise productivity strategies, such as Web 2.0, enterprise 2.0, and the consumerization of IT. Many enterprise workers use products like the iPhone and YouTube at home and they have expectations at work for similar functionality either through these tools or enterprise versions. As a loyal Mac. iTunes, and iPhone user who is still attached to Office, I was interested in where all these tools are going and appreciated getting a review copy of the report.
The report indicated that though most enterprises have long-term plans to continue using Office, alternative productivity tools will remain in the mix by leveraging the tools employees access for do-it-yourself technologies, such as those through mobile devices and the cloud. These evolving productivity tools will help enterprises transform to a fit-to-purpose approach to productivity, establishing the foundation for the next wave of productivity that’s focused on aligning tools with employee needs. In the words of the report, “The next wave of productivity will see today’s innovations dissolve into expected features, creating integrated touch points for content-related activities tailored to fit a business purpose or workforce segment.”
They pointed out that the recent recession has driven interest in free or low-cost alternatives to Microsoft Office and has slowed upgrade plans. In the past year OpenOffice.org has seen a modest uptake by enterprises and is now supported by nearly 10% of the organizations Forrester surveyed. Similarly, cloud-based email from providers like Google is finding traction as a lower-cost alternative to Exchange. I covered the email wars recently (see: Email Wars Heat Up in the Cloud). Google’e move caused Microsoft to drop its prices.
Another factor is the growing interest business process integration and automation, another topic I have discussed here (see for example: Building Enterprise 2.0 into the Product Development Process). As enterprises increasingly use collaboration platforms like SharePoint and the best of breed players, they will (or should) increasingly seek to integrate business content and processes in an effort to move from simple content storage to content workflows. I see this as what needs to be done to really make use of the enterprise 2.0 approach and tools. In a similar way, the only successful KM efforts were aligned to work processes.
There is much more in the report and I found it very useful. For example, the majority of people surveyed as a background for the report viewed alternatives to Microsoft Office as complementary, rather than replacements. In this light, many tools, including Microsoft Office 2010, are adding social computing capabilities. Other tools such as those from Google, IBM, and Novell are moving in the same direction.
by Bill Ives
September 7, 2010 at 3:55 am · Filed under
Web 2.0
I did a review of the comprehensive Vocus platform in March (see Vocus Provides Social Media Monitoring and Public Relations Management). Recently, I spoke with Kye Strance, the Vocus Director of Product Management, Phil Braden, VP of Product Management, and Frank Strong the Vocus Director of Public Relations for an update. Kye said their 2010 edition has launched and met strong customer approval. After looking at it I can see why.
The Vocus Web monitoring is designed specifically for PR professionals. This is a market they have focused on since 1991. In near real time, Vocus covers traditional media, social media, and looks at blogs as a separate category from the rest of social media. Kye explained that blog content tends to be more developed and comprehensive that the quick reactions often found in social media such as Twitter, Digg, and Facebook. I would certainly agree. With Facebook they can look at the publically accessible fan pages and with LinkedIn they can focus on the newer groups that LinkedIn has added. Vocus also finds different patterns of comment in each of these three categories, further validating the decision to treat them separately.
There are a number of useful data visualizations, a word cloud provides the top themes uncovered within each channel. To create the word cloud they aggregate the content within the target area and generate the most common words, filtering out the less meaningful common words. They you can click on the word and see the content that generated it. The word cloud can cover each of the three categories separately or all three together. The word cloud also enables users to refine content, use the same words their customers and prospects use, in order to speak “in their own language” in future communications. Additionally, word clouds can be used to monitor the word choice of their competitors for competitive analysis.
You can also see the top influencers. These are the people creating the most action around a brand or topic. Vocus has developed an algorithm based on several factors including relevancy, social influence and volume. You can see, for example, how many tweets a person generates on topic, as well as in total, and how many retweets get generated from these tweets. See below for an example of influential tweeters, bloggers, outlets, and reporters.
Then you can set up a profile of the top influencers in your areas of interest and add in more details. You can include links to public profiles from sources including Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. You can them use this profile to help create and monitor a relationship with the influencer. When you look at traditional media you can see the top reporters and top outlets in your areas of interest.
There is also automated sentiment analysis. You can add filters to fine tune and eliminate distractions. Kye said there are often different patterns of responses. Social media responses often show up first and are more extreme. Then blogs come in a bit more balanced and traditional media even more balanced. This makes sense but it is nice to see data to support the expected results. Below you can see blogs and social media by tone.
Sometimes the patterns reflect the way a product PR campaign is managed. For example, the Apple iPad showed up first in traditional media because Apple very carefully managed a more traditional approach. Then it was picked up in social media and finally the blogs. In contrast the recent Old Spice campaign showed up first in social media as it was designed as viral campaign toward that target. Then it was picked up but traditional media and the blogs.
I like what they are doing and easily see how it is useful for PR professionals. It is nice to see a general Web 2.0 capability such as Web monitoring and see it targeted at a niche audience to better serve the particular needs of that audience. I think that Vocus has succeeded with this goal
by Bill Ives
September 3, 2010 at 3:54 am · Filed under
Web 2.0
I have discussed MindTouch several times on this blog (see for example: MindTouch 2009 Provides Enhanced Development Platform for Rich Collaborative Applications). Recently, I spoke again with Aaron Fulkerson, their Co-Founder and CEO, on MindTouch 2010. First, we set some context for this latest release.
MindTouch was first released in 2006 as an Open Source wiki-based platform. The initial goal was to attract users and this has been achieved with over a l million users in hundreds of thousands of installations. In 2008 MindTouch began to sell support subscriptions. Then in 2009 they released a commercial version that sits on top of the free Open Source core. They discovered that many users were building product and service documentation with the MindTouch platform. These strategic efforts were used to engage potential customers, retain them, and increase cost savings through greater self-service. The decision was made to create MindTouch 2010 to provide greater capability through an intelligent platform for this growing use case. I think it was a wise decision.
As Aaron describes in a recent Forbes article, The Evolution Of User Manuals, product and service documentation has evolved from a tactical cost center to a revenue generating strategic tool. The advent of online documentation has learned with this transformation. Now you can apply SEO to the documentation to proactively attract potential customers and MindTouch has done this. You can also track their pathway through the documentation to determine their areas of interest and offer appropriate solutions, another area that MindTouch supports.
Aaron writes that some companies that he has spoken to report that their documentation brings in over 50% of qualified leads. He also notes that in his own company receives 70% plus of our site traffic from organic sources, and our documentation generates more than half of our overall site traffic. In addition, over half of their lead generation is driven by our documentation.
I can certainly believe this as I have seen similar results. This applies to both self-service documentation and that which supports call center reps. For example, is one company I worked with, the reps who made full use of the supporting product and service documentation were three times more likely to cross sell, moving from a below industry average achieved by the non-users to an above industry average for the documentation users.
MindTounch 2010 has enhanced three major areas to support this major use case. It now provides new capabilities for authoring, discovery, and curation of strategic content:
To support authoring MindTouch 2010 offers a multi-user, XML-driven editing platform that supports all rich media types. Users are able to publish in-a-click from commonly used desktop tools. The Web Oriented Architecture (WOA) ensures data portability. They also offer templates and Aaron walked me through some of these. A tutorial template not only provided short cuts but also offered good instructional format suggestions. Here is a sample opening page offering templates.
To support discovery MindTouch 2010 publishes content in a web-based format, dynamically generating navigation from content semantics and including effective search engine optimization tools. The enterprise-ready Adaptive Search engine delivers increasingly high quality results by learning from your users’ behavior.
Content curation is great new capability. To support this MindTouch 2010 introduces some targeted curation analytics. Customers can analyze their documentation by quality, aging and customer behavior in aggregate or by specific topics. You can use out-of the-box reports can create custom versions. Here are two sample reports covering aging and rating.
Aaron showed me a few client examples. Autodesk provides CAD software. They had a large user base. So they provided a MindTouch powered set of educational services. Based on participants’ interest, they now can cross sell through the educational materials. The pilot was very successful and now they are rolling the offering across all products. This is a clever approach.
I like what they are doing. It is a great example of a company listening to its users to identify an expanding market opportunity. They not only listened well but also provided some useful new capabilities to serve this use case.
Thought...
