for W3c validation
You have to admire Jive Software’s CEO, Tony Zingale, for not mincing his words about the importance of social business tools: Social Tools Are Essential, Not Extras. Behind that bravado, the success of the Jive Software IPO in December is itself a good indicator of how serious many companies are treating the implementation of social business technology.
Of course, from an Australian perspective it is easy to write off the excitement behind these social business tools as a purely northern hemisphere phenomenon. I hear arguments that:
- We don’t need it – business needs in Australia are different from our North American and European cousins.
- We’ve already invested in SharePoint or a similar document-centric solution (here is what we think of that).
But while we don’t hear much noise from those that do, right now a number of Australian organisations are already making use of Jive’s platform. These examples aren’t media and technology firms, but are found in the government, non-profit and even financial services sectors (and we’ve worked with some of them, and also others like them overseas). These are serious organisations who are making a measured investment in “social” technologies to help them become more connected.
One local published case study is REA Group – their business case for Jive was:
“REA needed to support and encourage collaboration so the team could operate as one company and reach its goals. With offices around Australia and the world, REA needed to break down barriers to efficiency and leverage knowledge across teams and countries. REA wanted to support and encourage innovation within the company. Central to this was a need to reflect a young employee group where the average age is late twenties. The team was used to and expected the same social networking tools they used outside of work. REA also needed staff to understand and embrace social media tools; they needed the people developing the sites, or selling digital marketing solutions to advertisers, to really understand what social media is all about.”
Not sure if you have a good business case? Or are you interested in exploring what Jive and other social business platforms like it have to offer? Then please get in touch – email james.dellow@headshift.com or phone +61 2 8218 2128.
