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Enterprise Social CRM a la Tibco
June 28, 2011
3 comments.
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned them before, but TIBCO (Tibco hereafter, because I hate capitalizing entire company names) is one of those wicked-smart companies that is moving social CRM forward in a usable, well thought out way for the enterprise. Tibco, and its tibbr product in particular, needs more exposure, because it has got a really solid grip on what businesses need to make social computing part of the work day.
Today marked the launch of tibbr 3.0, which Tibco is calling “the 21st century universal inbox for social computing in the enterprise.” Tibbr 3.0 will be generally available in August 2011; you can read the launch press release here, but I’m inclined to give my own thoughts about what’s on offer.
Videoconferencing. One of the components is tibcast, a video conference app with desktop video and voice. You might think this is no big deal, since there are several companies who have conference modules, and at least one or two who only do video conferencing. the difference is that tibcast is built right into your desktop work environment, and is completely ad-hoc. Nothing needs to be set up or agreed upon in advance; you can decide to have a conference on the fly with anybody you can reach, and just start the thing up. Anybody on the team who wasn’t available has full access to the recorded meeting, as well as any files that were shared.
Related to this is Tibbr Voice. When you dial into 1-800-TIBBR, the system recognizes your phone number (and thus your permissions) and allows you to post voice memos directly to your wall, or somebody else’s.
Document Management. Ram Menon, Tibco’s EVP of marketing, has been mentioning lately that next year, businesses will generate an estimated 1,500 exabytes (1 EB = 1 billion GB) of files—some 33 trillion documents—in addition to all the other data they will produce. Each year, what Menon calls “Where’s the File Syndrome” grows worse, and is exacerbated by cases where static copies must be distributed.
Tibbr 3.0 integrates with any folder file system (the example given is Microsoft SharePoint), granting discovery and write-back capabilities while preserving all corporate permissions and security. You can’t accidentally share a forbidden document by dragging it to the wrong area of your desktop, but you can make it available to the right people as if they had their own copy while still preserving a single version of the truth.
Easing Social Sprawl. Anybody who deals with more than a few social networking tools knows what social sprawl is—our attentions are split between so many communities and different kinds of interaction that managing the feeds becomes its own full time job. Tibbr Communities provides a single work space for them all, with multiple walls and varying access rights—again, you can’t accidentally put sensitive data on the wrong wall. All the pieces of your social media pile are consolidated into one installation. Tibco is calling this an industry first.
Actionability in the Social Context. Seeing the activity of coworkers, partners, and customers, and being able to communicate about it quickly and easily, is a huge plus. But business operations need more than a news feed and some chat. Tibco draws on its SOA expertise to let users act on what they see in the feed without going to another applications. Tibbr 3.0 lets you do things like approve purchase orders, OK budget requests, or order more inventory without ever leaving your wall—the place where you found out about the needed actions.
Further drawing on SOA, Tibbr 3.0 introduces tibSmartwidgets (I don’t choose the names, I just report on ‘em), a way to embed tibbr 3.0 into any existing enterprise apps through context-sensitive widgets.
What it all means to me. From what I can see, tibbr 3.0 is bloody beautiful in concept and execution. I might never again work in a large corporation where all of these new and awesome technologies will be used, but I can imagine using something like tibbr if I did, and feeling like it was how things should always have been. Feeling faceless, powerless, out of the loop, disconnected—these are major concerns for modern workers, and the younger generations coming into the work force won’t stand for it.
A number of good point solutions and adaptations of consumer-level social technology already exist, and there is a growing movement to integrate them into a single social business environment. Tibco is doing a fantastic job of it with tibbr. This is full-bore SCRM here.
Tibco is a name well known to industry insiders, but it seems the company doesn’t get much attention beyond those circles. I think this is a mistake. Tibco is doing game-changing work, and I urge you to take a closer look. Even if you’re happy with what you’ve got, or are a competitor, make Tibco part of the conversation. A rising tide floats all boats.
3 comments.
SuperNova Awards
June 6, 2011
0 comments.
There’s something in the air lately that is encouraging recognition of clever businesses. Constellation Research Group, headed by the amazing Ray Wang, has just announced its own set: the Supernova Awards. I am honored to be part of the judging panel for Social Business. Here’s the release.
THE GENESIS
Today, we announce an award that celebrates and recognizes leaders who have overcome the odds to successfully apply emerging and disruptive technologies for their organizations.
In Search of Protostars
Most award programs recognize the technology suppliers for their advancements in the market. Few, if any programs, have recognized individuals for their courage in battling the odds to effect change in their organization. The Constellation SuperNova Awards celebrate the explorers, the pioneers, and the unsung heroes who successfully put new technologies to work. More importantly, these leaders have created disruptions in their market.
“Applying technology innovation to effect business results requires exceptional organizational leadership and teamwork. It is not enough to simply implement the technology. To ensure success, these leaders had to build buy-in relationships across all levels of the organization – appealing to rational and emotional senses – as well as make tough calls in system delivery to make change easier”, noted Amy Wilson, Vice-President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research, Inc.
An all star cast of judges will identify applicants who embody the human spirit to innovate, overcome adversity, and successfully deliver market changing approaches. Applicants will be subjected to a vigorous set of criteria that reflect real-world and pragmatic experience. Semifinalists will be selected in five categories: social business, mobile enterprise, cloud computing, advanced analytics, and emerging technologies.
“Innovation is the life blood of businesses. We need to celebrate those pioneers who are able to see what the others don’t, who are willing to invest their time and energy while others don’t dare to, and whose passion inspires us all to look innovation in the eyes, embrace it and become innovators.” said Paul Papadimitriou, Vice-President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research, Inc.
THE DETAILS
Twitter: @SuperNovaAwards
Website: www.supernovaawards.com (Not Up Yet)
Time Lines
June 6, 2011 – First day of submissions
July 31, 2011 – Last day of submissions
August 15, 2011 – Protostars (semi-finalists) announced
November 4th, 2011 – SuperNovas (finalists) announced
All Star Judging Panel
Our judging panel comes from the best of the best. We’ve mixed an esteemed group of media professionals and industry experts with our analysts. Judges have agreed to volunteer their time in the evaluation of the submissions. The 2011 judging panel includes:
Social Business
Aaron Pearson (@apearson), Senior Vice-President – Weber Shandwick (PR Agency Lead)
Jeff Ashcroft (@jeffashcroft), Vice President – Constellation Research, Inc.
Barney Beal (@barneybeal), Managing Editor – Tech Target
Paul Greenberg (@pgreenbe), President – The 56 Group, LLC, Constellation Board of Advisors
Esteban Kolsky (@ekolsky), Founder – ThinkJar, Constellation Board of Advisors
Marshall Lager (@lager), Managing Principal – Third Idea Consulting, LLC
David Myron (@dmyron), Editor In Chief – CRM Magazine
Jon Swartz (@jswartz652), Technology Reporter – USA TodayMobile Enterprise
Kewal Varia (@kewalv), Managing Director – Spark Communications (PR Agency Lead)
David Brousell (@drb1), Editor-in-Chief – Thomas Publishing/Managing Automation
Bob Egan (@bobegan), Chief Analyst – Sepharim Group
Maribel Lopez (@maribellopez), Vice President – Constellation Research, Inc.
Jason Maynard (@jasonamaynard), Managing Director – Wells Fargo Securities
Mike Simons (@ITjournalist), Editor In Chief – ComputerWorldUK
Thomas Wailgum (@twailgum), Co-Editorial Director – ASUG NewsAdvanced Analytics
Susan Thomas (@susantrainer), CEO – Trainer Communic@tions (PR Agency Lead)
Courtney Bjorlin (@cbjorlin), Co-Editorial Director – ASUG News
Bridgette Chambers (@bchambersASUG), CEO – America’s SAP User Group (ASUG), Constellation Board of Advisors
Douglas Henschen (@dhenschen), Editor at Large – Information Week
Dennis Howlett (@dahowlett), Blogger – ZD Net Irregular Enterprise, Constellation Board of Advisors
Chris Kanaracus (@ckanaracus), Technology Reporter – IDG News Service
Erin Kinikin – Board of Advisor – Constellation Research, Inc.
Amy Wilson (@awils) – Vice President – Constellation Research, Inc.Cloud Computing
Colette Ballou (@coletteballou), President and CEO – Ballou PR (PR Agency Lead)
Naomi Bloom (@infullbloom), Managing Partner – Bloom & Wallace
Larry Dignan (@ldignan), Editor-in-Chief – ZDNet
Zoli Erdos (@zolierdos), Editor – CloudAve
Mary Jo Foley, Editor (@maryjofoley) – ZDNet All About Microsoft Blog and Contributor – Cloud Pro
Debra Lilley (@debralilley) – Board of Advisor – Constellation Research, Inc. & Chairperson – UK Oracle Users Group
Kash Rangan (@kashrangan), Managing Director – Merrill Lynch
Frank Scavo (@fscavo), Vice President – Constellation Research, Inc.
Krishnan Subramaninan (@krishnan), Industry Analyst and Researcher – KrishWorld & CloudAve
Alex Williams (@alexwilliams), Editor – SiliconAngleEmerging Tech
Vanessa Camones (@vanessacamones), Principal and Founder – theMIX Agency (PR Agency Lead)
Adrian Bowles (@ajbowles), Vice President – Constellation Research, Inc.
John Furrier (@furrier), Editor and Founder – SiliconAngle
Annalie Killian (@maverickwoman), Catalyst for Magic – AMP , Executive Producer – Amplify Festival
Marshall Kirkpatrick (@marshallk), Co-Editor -ReadWriteWeb
Paul Papadimitriou (@papadimitriou), Vice President – Constellation Research, Inc.
Robert Scoble (@scoblelizer), Tech Evangelist – RackSpace
Alan Silberberg (@alanwsilberberg), Vice President – Constellation Research, Inc.
Awards Criteria
Judges will evaluate submissions in six key areas:
- Building the business case for exec sponsorship - How did you overcome internal adversity for the project? What was used to build the case for buy – in among the executives? How did you fund the project?
- Applying change management critical success factors - What communication channels did you face? How did the organization gain acceptance for new approaches? What worked? What didn’t work? What were your key lessons learned?
- Deploying innovative uses of emerging and disruptive technology – How did you determine which technology was feasible? Why did you choose the vendor or approach you chose for this technology? How did IT and the business cooperate to apply new technologies?
- Measuring the metrics that matter – What metrics drove the business case? Why were these metrics chosen to measure the impact of the technology? How did you measure success with those technologies?
- Assessing the impact of innovation? What was the impact to stakeholders (internal and external)? What was the impact to the business? What was the impact on the competitive landscape?
- Coolness factor for the story - How well was the story told? Is this story usable for a panel on best practices? Was this truly game changing or disruptive? Can others learn and apply the lessons told?
THE REWARDS
All semifinalists will be invited to Constellation’s Connected Enterprise 2011, an invitation only innovation event in Scottsdale, Arizona from November 4th to 6th, 2011. Described as TED meets Davos meets Innovation summit, the three-day executive retreat will include mind expanding keynotes from visionaries and futurists, interactive best practices panels, The Constellation SuperNova Awards event, a golf outing, and an experiential spousal/partner program.
“Connected Enterprise 2011 brings together our research, our clients, and a network of thought leaders into a networked physical and online community” noted Maribel Lopez, Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research, Inc..
A select group of semi-finalists will be chosen to present on one of five best practice panels at the event. The panelists will receive one innovation retreat invitation and one spousal/partner experiential invitation. All semifinalists will become honorary SuperNova community members of Constellation Research.
All finalists will win a one -year subscription to Constellation’s Research Library and complimentary tickets to the Connected Enterprise 2012 event, an estimated value of $120,000 per winner. Additional rewards will be announced as sponsors are added to the Constellation’s Connected Enterprise 2011 event. For sponsorship details contact: sales (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.
APPLY NOW
Applications can be obtained by using the official submission form.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Questions?
Send your comments to the blog or reach Constellation via email: SuperNova (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.
Disclosure
Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, see the full client list on the Constellation Research website.
Copyright © 2011 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.
0 comments.
CRM Idol latest news
June 1, 2011
0 comments.
You read it here first, unless you read it somewhere else already. Here’s the skinny on CRM Idol, as expressed by The Man himself, Paul Greenberg:
Okay. We’re locked and loaded. Reference checks done. Programs being put into place. Website in progress. A new prize. Final contestant list in place with times and dates complete.
Here’s what’s happened since we last talked.
Prizes
We have new prizes.
First, Donal Daly CEO of The TAS Group, has generously provided his sales deal software, Dealmaker Sales Performance Automation, to a winner. Not one, but ten licenses for a full year with setup thrown in for free and no strings attached. This is a $12,000 value. Not too shabby.
Then, Brent Leary, one of the most influential folks in CRM and small business and a CRM Idol primary judge is offering for the Americas only
- inclusion in his 2011 coming in September 2011 CRM-Ish List of companies to watch that can provide products/services to the small business community.
- an invitation to be a featured participant (speaker and/or panelist) at the inaugural Social Business Atlanta conference in September 2011 (details coming soon)
- a featured spot on SmallBizTrends.com One-on-One conversation series
And finally, for seven finalists, Brent Leary and I are offering an interview on CRM Playaz, our widely watched and of course wildly popular lets-just-say “funny” show. Though they may not consider that much of a prize since we get the chance to not just give them exposure, but mock them if we care to. But the offer is there to all seven finalists.
More large prizes are in the works. We’ll be working on those until the date of the competition so stay tuned. Now that Scottie won American Idol, what else do you have to do with your time anyway? We’re way more interesting than “So You Think You Can Dance?”.
Website
We knocked it out of the park on this one. Soon, though I can’t give you an exact date, we’re going to be the proud recipients of a Drupal-enabled social site for CRM Idol which will allow you to do a lot including:1.
- Learn something about all 60 companies participating in the contest.
- Be able to rank and rate and comment on the videos and other uploaded content that might be provided by the participant companies
- Get the latest updates.
- Get all links you need for the participants, the vendors, the influencers, the media and even communicate with them – publicly
- Communicate with the judges.
- Plus lots of other stuff.
What makes this a home run is that the company doing this for us is Dri, a premier web design company who specializes in open source. The owner, Diogo Rebelo, is making sure that we get a Drupal social site, so that we can communicate with each other throughout the CRM Idol process. A first iteration focused around content management will be up in about 2 weeks. Watch for it at http://www.crmidol.com.
Mentor-60
One thing that we want to provide throughout the CRM Idol process is mentorship. For example, as simple as it might sound, it isn’t that easy to impress an influencer/analyst with your product or company, given that its likely the influencer/analyst has seen it all already – being asked to take demos between 10-50 times a week. So, in the spirit of preparation for the demos the 60 candidates are going to have to do for the primary judges, we are announcing the Mentor-60 program. This will consist of two pieces:
1. A 45 minute webinar by primary judge and top CRM analyst Esteban Kolsky on “How to Demo”. This will be given once at a time that will be convenient to both the Americas and EMEA and all 60 of the contestants will be invited to join. However its strictly optional when it comes to signing up and not signing up will have no impact on how the voting/judging on the 60 goes later on in August.
2. Many of the extended judges panels have volunteered their time to be mentors who during the month of July will make time available for communicating with the 60 participants to answer questions on how to handle the demos. This won’t include a full review of the demo but more in the “should we do something like this” or “does it make sense to include this” mode. What channels and dates and whether we are going to assign judges to specific companies or have them be generally available on a specific day remains to be determined. As of now, 32 of the judges have already volunteered and many others are in the process of responding.
Final Calendar
The reference checks are done. That was the final step in the process. We have only one change. We are adding Crowd Factory to the list of contestants. Congrats to them! (Whoo! Hoo!) They were able to be first in line for the waiting list. If others drop out for reasons that are driven by them, the next in line on the waiting list will be chosen. And so on and so forth. See the final (and this is the final final final) calendar below for the dates and times of your favorite CRM Idol participant.
The Americas Calendar – FINAL
The Americas (all times are Eastern Time)
| Date | |||||
| August 15 3pm – PhaseWare 4pm – Performance Solutions 5pm – Solucciones 6pm – Jaguar TPM |
August 16 3pm – Relenta CRM 4pm – LuxorCRM 5pm – thedatabank 6pm –Connected |
August 17 3pm –Assistly 4pm – SplendidCRM 5pm – RO/Innovation 6pm – GreenRope |
August 18 3pm – Cosential 4pm – Media Funnel 5pm – Tasker.ly 6pm – Aplicor |
August 19 3pm -FreeCRM 4pm – Crowd Factory 5pm – Antharia LLC 6pm – Relayware |
|
| August 22 3pm – Lookout Software, Inc. 4pm – InvisibleCRM 5pm – Negoxia 6pm – CiviCRM |
August 23 3pm –Vigilius LLC 4pm – Hyperoffice 5pm – SalesNexus LLC 6pm – Salestrakr |
August 24 3pm – Brick St. Software 4pm – Stone Cobra 5pm – VIPorbit 6pm – Nimble |
August 25 3pm – Front Row CRM 4pm – GetSatisfaction 5pm – ContactMe 6pm – FuzeDigital |
August 26 3pm – bigWebApps 4pm – Loopfuse 5pm – Vertical Solutions, Inc. 6pm – Dovetail Software |
EMEA – FINAL
EMEA (all times are GMT)
| Date | |||||
| September 5 3pm – Swivelscript 4pm – InTouch 5pm – Efficy NV 6pm – Jibe Company |
September 6 3pm – Loyalty Factory 4pm – B-Kin 5pm – Atollon 6pm – Dimelo |
September 7 3pm – Pipedrive 4pm – Akordis 5pm – Workbooks.com 6pm – BPMonline CRM |
September 8 3pm – Iko System 4pm – Zestia Ltd 5pm – Really Simple Systems 6pm - Arten Science Ltd. |
September 9 3pm –The SelfService Co. 4pm – Digita Srl 5pm –ABCrm 6pm – webCRM |
All the Rules, We are not Fools
We are now working on the finalizing the processes and rules for the actual judging of the competition. As you know there are five judges for the Americas and four for EMEA as of this update. (No changes are expected but one never knows). We recognize that all the judges might not be able to do all the demos due to client conflicts etc. and we are working from that premise to make sure that there is fair and adequate representation and a set of minimum standards. We are also working on defining the scoring system that works in this environment. Some of the criteria will be made public; the weight placed on the criteria will not be made public. We are discussing what to do with the results also.
Additionally, in an entirely optimistic vein, we are discussing how to handle the awards of the prizes. The winners won’t get all of the prizes, they will choose from a selection of prizes (the number is TBD). There will be prizes that all 7 finalists (the video makers) get because it won’t be an easy thing to get there. There are other models under discussion on the award. Watch here for the results soon.
In the next update we’ll (if the spirit moves us) reveal the judging criteria and the prize awards model. Stay tuned. The ride starts here. We’re ALL going to Vegas -except me. I don’t like Vegas. I’m going to Barcelona. Or New York. Anyone wanna come?
I tell ya, this stuff is easy when somebody else writes it.
A Round of Pints e-book by Marshall Lager