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the Free CMSWire NewsletterNewsflash: Nobody in the enterprise is innovative.
Okay, that’s not entirely true; however, something like 99% of the companies that tell you they’re innovative, simply aren’t.
And it’s not their fault, it’s just that these days innovation is like originality: it’s hard, if not impossible. In truth, consumer tech has become the de facto watering hole for most enterprise developers, which is totally cool if you like a little social spice in your work flow, but many experts will tell you that things are getting way, way out of hand.
Below the Influence
The "Enterprise Two-Dot-Oh-Dear" era is best exemplified by the mighty falling of Google Wave. Though it was once haughtily touted as the second coming of e-mail, most companies found Wave to be a confusing, wonky mashup of social elements that didn't really fit as a collective unit in the business space.
"This is not a measurability problem," wrote co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of MindTouch, Aaron Fulkerson, of the less than impressive success rate of Enterprise 2.0 deployments. "It stems primarily from the rampant misapplication of consumer technologies in the form of point applications."
And while nothing could be more true, the consumer tech train is way past the point of slowing down. If the enterprise can't at least try to catch up, where does that leave it?
Obsessed with Technology
“The kind of technological innovations that people get obsessed with don’t tend to come from the bowels of some big glass tower somewhere, or some back office system," said Michael Coté, an industry analyst with RedMonk. "They come from Facebook, Google and Twitter.” (And here we thought "optimization" was our favorite "O" word.)
Take a look at Salesforce's Chatter, Yammer, Jive's Social Business Software, Socialcast, Socialtext, MangoSpring, SAP Streamwork, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. All of these products are based on, or have been heavily influenced by, some sort of whiz-bang-how-have-we-lived-our-entire-lives-without-this capability, such as activity streams or microblogging.
As these big names continue to release such tools, so will smaller ones, and more startups will build their business models around them, and lo! Is that a US $250 million dollar social Web development venture fund backed by Facebook and Amazon we spy? It is! Just imagine how that will boost the consumer market (a.k.a. the E2.0 powerhouse).
And therein lies the disconnect.
Sure, these features are fun, familiar and collaborative. And okay, they're also way cheaper. But what about enterprise ready?
Keep it Simple, Stupid (+5 More S’s)
Here's a good mantra for the present and future: easy integration does not equal widespread adoption in the enterprise. Moreover, most companies don't want to adopt consumer tech wholesale. So, instead of focusing on how simple a product is, how awesome it is, or how few clicks it takes to mix in the new school, it might be wise to focus on a few old school ideas.
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