This morning Socialtext launched Socialtext 3.0, a trio of applications for connected collaboration with context:
- Socialtext People - Social networking for the enterprise
- Socialtext Workspace - Group-editable wiki for easy, flexible, enterprise-wide collaboration
- Socialtext Dashboard - Customizable home pages that let each person decide where to focus their attention.
Socialtext 3.0 delivers connected collaboration with context, both internally within the organization and externally with customers and partners in extranet communities. It is built on a modular and integrated architecture that enables rapid integration with other enterprise systems and makes other enterprise applications social.
Just outta beta, you can get a free trial now.
Socialtext Signals, an integrated Twitter for-the-enterprise
We also announced Socialtext Signals, integrated microblogging for the enterprise. Socialtext Signals is social messaging for the enterprise connected with context. With the rise of Twitter, more people are learning the benefits of microblogging as a medium for conversations and sharing each day. Socialtext developed a standalone version six months ago. Using it internally we've learned how different usage is from Twitter, not just because it is more private, but because it is in the context of a company. The social patterns of what people say and share has taught us a lot about potential use cases. Now in private beta with Socialtext customers, Socialtext Signals will provide an integrated user experience across Socialtext Workspace, Socialtext Dashboard and Socialtext People.
Conversations Connected with Context
Socialtext Signals is built upon a Connected Collaboration Platform for an integrated user experience. This provides two forms of microblogging:
- What people are saying and sharing -- through Socialtext Signals
- What people are doing and working on -- through Socialtext People's Update Feeds
One benefit we have observed with Signals is helping the signal to noise ratio. For example, if someone makes edits to four wiki pages and summarizes what they did in a signal. Another pattern is what someone does can serve as a weak signal and through signal conversations be elevated to a strong signal for a broader group to pay attention to. But the general pattern of value for signaling is sharing context. Not only does Socialtext Signals enable people to share context, but it benefits from the context of who people are through Profiles and how they collaborate in Workspaces. Socialtext People contains Update Feeds that are automatically generated by the activity of people. When combined with Socialtext solutions such as Service & Support, connected collaboration with context could increase the integrated value proposition. For a major electronics manufacturer with five thousand employee call center using Socialtext for knowledge sharing and documentation, they decreased time-to-resolution by 10-30% according to their own measures. With greater context and the ability to gain collective insight from the group without costly interruptions, the organizational capability could be substantially greater.
Get answers without interrupting people
A common social pattern on twitter is to ask questions to find information or people. The results can be surprisingly effective, but also efficient. Beyond search, you are tapping into the collective intelligence of participants. Rapidly. And without the costs associated with other communication mediums for asking people questions. This is because the constraints of microblogging actually support efficient communications:
- Messaging is in near real time
- Messages are kept to 140 characters, the length of an SMS message, which encourages brevity, summary and linking
- While you can view all messages, you follow people to create a custom feed of the signals from the people you want, leveraging the social network as a filter
- In most use cases, Signals is implemented as a "Reply-Optional" medium
- @Reply conventions reveal when a message is directed to you in public, while letting others add value or benefit from the conversation
While the integrated value proposition of Socialtext Signals will be greater with process-specific solutions, the broader values include speed of communication, knowledge sharing, context sharing and collective intelligence.
Kudos
I'm really proud of the entire team for getting out our most substantial upgrade in years. Eugene Lee has brought a great focus on execution across the company and the outside world only sees it through punctuated events like this one. Also, my heartfelt thanks to Pete Kaminski who developed the standalone version and added greatly to this vision.
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