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The blank slate of a New Year inspires us to rethink the world around us. We resolve to do things differently:eat better, exercise more, practice patience or pay off our bills. This year, we tell ourselves, everything will be different.
But as I look to the year ahead, I find myself less interested in doing things differently and more interested in simply doing them better.
I'd like to see this year be a year of staying the course and continuing to execute against established priorities, as well as planning for the future. The time is now for delivering against the basics!
Defining the Basics
It is no surprise that in a universe as complex as the enterprise, the list of “basics” is pretty long. Here are some of the projects that I think deserve special attention in the coming year.
Mobile
Let's finally figure out the right mobile strategies and align them with business needs across different mobile personas, device types and intranet applications.
Smartphones
Let's wrap our arms around the rapidly changing smartphone marketplace. In 2013, Samsung overtook Apple as the market leader and Blackberry dropped off the map. Now, Microsoft is acquiring Nokia and is poised to become more of a player with enterprise customers. We need to figure out what all of this means for the enterprise.
Social
Let's drill down on the integration of content, communication, collaboration and application environments and bring social into the reasoned part of our communication and collaboration portfolios.
Real Time
Let's rise to the challenge of user expectations about access to real-time data and prepare for increased demand on corresponding delivery systems.
SharePoint
Let's figure out SharePoint 13. With online, on premises and hybrid forms, SharePoint 13 will continue to evolve (especially in its Office 365 form) and dominate the intranet space. It is going to take some work, but let's figure out the SharePoint 13 app model and capitalize on the app commercialization model.
Personalization and Aggregation
Let's deliver on our expectations of personalization and aggregation as information overload and end-user focus converge to create greater demand for these capabilities.
Analytics
Let's capture the power of analytics to understand internal usage patterns and adjust information worker-focused capabilities accordingly.
Cloud
Let's embrace the capabilities of the cloud (because it's not going anywhere!).
Learning Opportunities
Webinar
May
30
ChatGPT and the Future of Conversational AI
This discussion explores various aspects of AI implementation, ethical considerations, and challenges for your organization.
Webinar
May
31
The Evolution of Employee Listening - 2023 Trends & Best Practices
Learn proven effective methods and solutions to supporting an inspirational future of Employee Voice
Webinar
Jun
1
How organizations can design, build and run Generative AI into the Customer Experience
Discover how to drive enhanced CX through Generative AI
Webinar
Jun
6
The Future of Social Media: Emerging Trends and How to Stay Ahead of the Curve
The impact of emerging technologies like AI on social media
Webinar
Jun
7
The Building Blocks of Personalization
This webinar will explore how personalization can create powerful ecommerce shopping experience.
Webinar
Jun
13
The Future of Contact Centers with AI at the Helm
Learn how to balance human intuition and interaction with the potential uses of AI to create delightful and lasting CX
Webinar
May
30
ChatGPT and the Future of Conversational AI
This discussion explores various aspects of AI implementation, ethical considerations, and challenges for your organization.
Webinar
May
31
The Evolution of Employee Listening - 2023 Trends & Best Practices
Learn proven effective methods and solutions to supporting an inspirational future of Employee Voice
Search
Let's deliver better search tools and educate end users to conduct better searches. By integrating various content sources and improving functions like rules-based catalog views, search has the potential to become more of a suggestion engine and automatically surface content that’s critical to an individual’s day to day job functions.
Planning for the Future
Getting back to the basics does not mean turning your back on strategic planning.
Great strategy ensures that the right bets are made, the right level of funding is provided, and things are orchestrated in a rational manner across a portfolio of initiatives. As the landscape articulated above becomes more complex and the opportunities for value production become greater, strategic planning becomes even more important in 2014.
Developing a holistic "Communication, Collaboration, Content and Social Computing Strategy" will allow you to take a step back and develop a more holistic view of your current and future delivery portfolios across these areas as aligned with your business needs, current adoption levels, budgets and technical trends.
A "SharePoint Strategy" will help you define the things you need to put into place moving forward to get more value out of your investment in that platform (such as business alignment and enablement, further service and capability development, etc.).
But none of this works if you don't have a good understanding of your user base and their user experience needs, which must be at the heart of any strategy.
This year, the enterprise can close the loop on some of the nagging issues that have been holding us back. By prioritizing doing things better and getting things done, we can prepare for the exciting innovations that lie ahead. And that will make for a happy New Year for us all!
Editor's Note: Read more from Kevin in Enterprise Social: Driving Productivity or Driving to Distraction?
