Posted by Matt Geiser on April 19, 2011
AnotherPlace - This was a sensitive word with the OnePlace founding team. They did not want to hear that their OnePlace social software for teams could easily be delegated as “AnotherPlace”. I joined the OnePlace team one year ago as a business development consultant and, of course, I had to challenge the product’s value. Collaboration is cool, but is it worth the hassle of another software application, and another subscription? As I came up to speed on Social Business Software space, I looked at dozens of applications that were developed to enhance team performance while leveraging the social aspects of popular interfaces like Facebook and Twitter, they all were AnotherPlace: each valuable in their own right, but not critical tools.
Now as a part Bluewater, 22 people are using OnePlace daily to various degrees. For some it replaces the network drive where files used to be stored. Others use it to share their daily conquests, collaborate and/or manage their daily workloads. This morning I received a team activity report from OnePlace that showed OP usage by individual and the overall team; the numbers were impressive and the range of usage by team member is wide. User adoption is very individualistic in collaborative solutions and that is okay, as long as every user sees value in participating in the discussion.
In the new software model, solutions are casually brought in by the team, and users are not forced to adopt them. Rather users now need to find value on their own terms. The new model isn’t all or nothing, instead value is driven at an individual level, and team adoption reflects that. For everyone on our team the consensus is that OnePlace isn’t AnotherPlace, rather it has become ThePlace for team social and work activity.
Posted by Dana Larson on November 08, 2010
There’s been a big movement lately regarding social business software, and how this can help facilitate business team collaboration and work communication. And while this is true, many businesses are thinking that this type of communication can effectively take place in popular social media sites like Twitter or Facebook.
I’ve seen some people suggest that, if you just create a Twitter list of people with whom you have professional connections, you’ll be able to handle your business collaboration right within your personal network. I think this is missing a few components, one of them being the work at hand.
Posted by Dana Larson on August 12, 2010
If your business is looking ahead for new solutions to make it more successful, you may have heard the phrase “social business software” recently. But you might be wondering exactly what it is and how it can help your business.
As a relatively new concept from an old need, social business software refers to a software application that allows those within a business to connect and communicate. It will allow those in the business to connect with those outside the business, such as customers, clients and vendors. It will also connect team members over great distances, thus allowing for a dispersed team and reduced travel costs for face-to-face meetings.