I found this while browsing a recent post by Stuart McIntyre on his Collaboration Matters blog. Deloitte just published a study on measurable business performance improvements with social software. Like Stuart and this study, I agree that there are some serious business outcomes from social business. I think that it will change the way we interact by letting us actually interact with people instead of just a bunch of documents. When I look at how IBM and other vendors are using this technology to allow people to get and act on information, I’m impressed. Activity Streams v 1.0 is neat. Activity Streams 2.0 and beyond will generate some real value.
From Deloitte Study:
This “Social Software for Business Performance” paper discusses:
- Profound changes are underway. The current technologies support standard business processes but fail to support the dynamic informal communications needed for resolving exceptions. Employees need tools that enable them to navigate organizational boundaries, connect to the right people and accelerate exception resolution.
- Skeptics will finish last. Companies that want to successfully implement these tools should develop a strategy for deriving tangible operating performance improvements and achieving competitive advantage through the intelligent and targeted application of social software tools.
- Focusing on adoption is a dead-end strategy. Adoption metrics have not historically addressed what matters most to employees, managers or executives. As long as adoption is the primary measure of success, resistance, at all levels, will likely block successful social software deployment.
A few of Stuart’s comments:
Exception management is a big theme – that existing business practices have significant overhead when dealing with the large volume of exceptions to the standard processes. I would agree, that in many businesses I consult with, exceptions are beginning to outnumber the in-process elements. Typically these are dealt with using email or other 1:1 communications such as phone calls or faxes. Social software can make a significant difference in reducing (and dealing with) these exceptions that occur again and again.
See the whole article for a better idea.
