Collaboration is a tough word. PLM Is using this word all the time. For the last 10-15 years in this industry, I had a chance to see lots of variations on what means collaboration and what will be the next big shift in collaboration. Recently, I started to see multiple attempts to crack the holy grail collaboration using a "social" approach. However, despite the huge success of social networks and web 2.0 website, word "social" is still sound to me a bit fuzzy when applied to enterprise companies.
Yesterday, I’ve seen an announcement from Atalasoft presenting VizIt Social eXchange. Navigate your browser to the following link to learn more. The idea of conversation connected to a specific document in SharePoint make sense. I found a certain similarity between this idea and the original idea of "design discussions" presented by Chris Willams of Vuuch.
Collaboration and Complexity
The complexity is the biggest killer of the everything in the enterprise. Regardless on the future name and buzzwords, tomorrow enterprise systems will need to fight complexity. Social networks and Web 2.0 websites proved some ideas about how to organize and share information in a contextual form to make it very simple. However, manufacturing company is not a photo-sharing website. The complexity of the systems in manufacturing companies is going much beyond the ability of the social networking website.
What is the Meaning of "Social"?
I tried to understand the meaning of a word "social" in the way companies introduce it in their solutions. From what I’ve seen, it seems to me as an additional link between a user information and rest of the data. The amount of data connections in the enterprise organization is big. Implicitly, a connection between user and data does exist in the company. The attempt of "social systems" is to make this information explicitly available. Make sense to me. So, "social" is just an additional information that can be captured and maintained by social systems.
What is my conclusion? I think "social" is the next buzz about collaboration. People don’t want to listen to the word "collaboration" anymore. This is meaningless. Everybody understands it differently. "Social" ideas are coming from the understanding of Web 2.0 experience and can present a new to people to work together. However, I don’t see a "social" effect as something magical. Users will recognize the pattern – "old software, different names". So, to make something new and to remove a complexity will be the reality test for social systems.
Best, Oleg
The difference with Vuuch is you do not need to install anything. With VizIt you need to install a server and you already need to have installed Sharepoint.
Want to see an example then go to this Vuuch page http://vuuch.me/collaboration/fileRepNW4/discussionsLow/916 which represents our documentation. And if you want to get involved you can subscribe using the link on the top of the page. Although most Vuuch pages are private it is possible to open them up like the documentation page.
Oleg, now you’re moving into my area of passion
You’re correct that “social” is really just another word for collaboration. The problem is that most people get confused by the plethora of consumer-based social products out there, and when you talk about social computing in the enterprise. its difficult for them to see the connection.
Think of social as another layer of search; social is a way to further filter through and automate discovery of content through metadata and relationships. Social is still in the adolescent stage in SharePoint, but is rapidly catching up with other vendors. A great example of a strong connection between social and the enterprise is Jive software. While Jive does not have the depth and breadth of SharePoint, they are really good at what they do – using social to innovate and collaborate, essentially creating a semantic web around ideas.
Chris, Thanks for commenting. I agree with you. The advantage of the app delivered as a service vs. application that needs to be installed like SharePoint is clear. However, I’d be interested to know how Vuuch can be used together with SharePoint infrastructure? Is it possible to plug-in Vuuch into SharePoint? Thanks, Oleg
Christian, You are making an interesting point. First conclusion – social enterprise is just “hype” and marketing. On the fundamental level is yet another way to help people to collaborate using additional information about people-data in the organization. On the other side, I want to understand better what “depth and breadth” of SharePoint you are mentioning. Can you elaborate on that, please? Best, Oleg
I was speaking in coparison to Jive. If you think of social computing as another layer of search, it makes more sense. Social is powered by metadata, which helps you find content — whether you’re looking for it (traditional search) or not (friends recommend, or system suggests based on your profile, your search habits, relationship of content and people in your network). I view social computing as another step toward the semantic web where your results include what you actually want to find, not necessarily what you were looking for, because the system is “intelligent” anough to discern what you need, and then find it for you.
As for SharePoint – in comparison with Jive, and some fo the other solutions out there – it is a platform, and therefore not bound by the same rules and boundaries. It is increasingly extensible. You can build itinto whatever you want it to be. It may be more cost-effective to purchase Jive today if that’s what you’re looking for, but long-term, you will get where you want more quickly and cheaply with SharePoint than with Jive, because you can extend SharePoint….and you cannot extend Jive.
With SharePoint you will see vendors building depth across functional areas, such as PLM, BI, ECM, and Project Management, as well as breadth across verticals/industries, such as Health, Software, Government, Education, etc because of its flexibility and its extensive partner network. You will never match that potential with most (all?) competing technologies.
Cristian,
I don’t see “social” as a search. Social as a “connection” can make sense. I think, your comparison between “social” and “semantic” can make sense. However, social is much smaller. This is only “one dimension” of semantic.
With regards to SharePoint – if you consider it as a “infrastructure” it makes a lot of sense. SharePoint is kinda expensive and requires a lot of development work on a site. Since end users are less care about techno, let’s see how PLM companies will leverage it efficiently. It can potentially come as a waste on the licenses’ side. Just my thoughts… Best, Oleg
The social tools themselves are not search, but what they do is help surface relevant content, adding to search and the semantic web. Its more than just connecting, because social tools can also be used to build links, apply metadata, and improve relevance to artifacts. But yes, I agree, its only one dimension of the semantic web.
As far as SharePoint cost, it really depends on what you want to do with it. As it applies to PLM specifically, yes, it can be expensive to customize an integration. But that’s why companies like PTC are making huge inroads into the manufacturing sector by providing utilities that utilize SharePoint as a presentation layer to much deeper, more complex PLM functionality. The beauty of SharePoint as a platform is that companies like PTC can develop web parts that can be dropped into out-of-the-box SharePoint environments without the need for all of that customization, dramatically reducing the cost for manufacturing firms to take advantage of SharePoint.
Christian, In general agree about SharePoint. However, the question of cost will be the most critical. If Sharepoint won’t bring the increased amount of services for PLM implementation it might work. Best, Oleg