Editorial
During this busy end-of-the year holiday season, most of us are enjoying some well-deserved time with family and friends, and eagerly anticipating the New Year ahead.
But in the work anywhere, anytime age, some people are still working.
In an article earlier this year, CMSWire contributor Paul Miller, CEO and founder of the Digital Workplace Group, a strategic partner and boutique consultancy, explained why — describing it as a pragmatic and empowering reflection of the way we now have the option to work in the digital age.
It was just one of the many issues we discussed in our extensive coverage of the digital workplace this year. In June, we'll take the conversation about the way people work to a deeper level at our first Digital Workplace Experience at the Radisson Blu Aqua hotel in Chicago.
The conference is a strategic partnership between Miller and Brice Dunwoodie, president of Simpler Media Group (SMG) — the parent company of CMSWire — and producer of the DX Summit.
We hope everyone in the CMSWire community with an interest in the evolving world of work will join us for the event.
CMSWire Hits
In the meantime, let's celebrate the authors who crafted CMSWire's Top 15 digital workplace stories of the year.
No. 15
Steffen Maier is the co-founder of Impraise, asked the controversial question, Who Needs Annual Performance Reviews?
Employees do not want annual performance reviews. Rather, they prefer frequent and helpful conversations that assist in their development at work.
No. 14
CMSWire reporter Dom Nicastro shared the news about Slack Getting a Full-Featured CRM App.
Treviso, Italy-based mobile CRM and sales tracking app Sellf joins the Slack App Directory with its own bot, which is designed to help sales agents celebrate sales victories.
No. 13
CMSWire Chief Editor Noreen Seebacher took a tongue-in-cheek look at 5 Reasons to Hate Teamwork.
Now, we're all team players … yay! — even those of us who remember rolling our eyes and audibly sighing when our second-grade teachers assigned a group project. Today, we all clearly understand that there is a direct (negative) correlation between stating too many personal opinions (however valid) and future success at a company.
No. 12
Laurence Lock Lee, co-founder and chief scientist at Swoop Analytics, examined The Smoke and Mirrors of Enterprise Social Networking Metrics.
We are finding a serious mismatch between what the C-Suite is looking for and what has traditionally been measured in enterprise social network settings. We think it is related to the heritage of social analytics developed in the consumer world — and believe lessons learned there should not be simply copied and pasted into an enterprise collaboration context.
No. 11
CMSWire Chief Editor Noreen Seebacher and reporter Dom Nicastro collaborated on What the Fall of Monster.com Means to Online Job Search.
Job sites aren't the oasis for the unemployed and unhappily employed they once were, experts concede. Chalk it up to newer options including social media.
No. 10
SAP executives Steve Hamrick, VP of Product Management, and Daisy Hernandez, Global VP of Product Management for SAP Jam Collaboration, collaborated on Your Intranet Probably Sucks - And Here’s Why.
Your employees can’t find what they’re seeking. They spend an inordinate amount of time clicking through pages that are either outdated or contain incorrect information. They waste an hour or more each day searching for the right information.
No. 9
Freelance digital strategist, collaboration consultant and human-centered designer James Dellow suggested it was time to Say Goodbye to Vanilla SharePoint Intranets.
Companies today have access to a wide range of intranet add-ons. These solutions provide options not just to configure or build, but to buy as well — and then configure or build further, depending on the solution and the business appetite to do so.
No. 8
CMSWire reporter Dom Nicastro continued our ongoing coverage of Microsoft's collaboration platform with a story that asked Does Microsoft Really Give a Damn About Yammer?
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Microsoft needs to give its users a “roadmap in social,” said Joel Oleson, director of business development at Konica Minolta Business Solutions. “Beyond integration and early fanfare, not much has happened with the Yammer user experience after making it part of Office 365. Not much is happening in terms of them setting a really clear path for enterprise social.”
No. 7
Sam Marshall, owner of ClearBox Consulting, took on the challenge of Comparing 6 SharePoint Intranets-in-a-Box.
To test the products, we looked at some scenarios where SharePoint development is typically needed to fill the gap between Microsoft’s offering and full intranet functionality. For example, we asked how well they supported a news publishing process, we looked for enhanced mobile collaboration and we asked if the vendors had done anything to supplement SharePoint’s primitive analytics.
No. 6
David Lavenda, VP of Product Strategy at harmon.ie, explained how The Future of Work Will Look a Lot Like Today's Customer Experience.
Many of the same strategies and techniques used to engage customers can readily be leveraged to improve the employee experience. By observing today’s new customer-facing tools, we can make some good predictions about what to expect in the enterprise in the not too distant future.
No. 5
CMSWire reporter David Roe shared research that concluded the users — and not Microsoft — were the reason for low SharePoint adoption. People loved the article, The Problem With Microsoft SharePoint? People.
New research from AIIM, a Silver Spring, Md.-based information management group, concluded SharePoint user adoption remains an issue for 58 percent of survey respondents, who consistently complain about poor or inadequate training and lack of management support.
No. 4
After much anticipation, Microsoft released SharePoint 2016. CMSWire reporter David Roe got reaction in SharePoint 2016: 9 Experts Weigh In.
The release is noteworthy on many levels. It formalized Microsoft’s hybrid approach for SharePoint, while simultaneously promising on-premises users that they wouldn’t be left behind. It demonstrated a commitment to user experience and introduced the SharePoint Framework, which opens the platform up to more developers.
No. 3
Yes, SharePoint 2016 was a source of unending interest this year, and a story by CMSWire reporter David Roe that explained how Microsoft was Shaking Up Its Strategy With its SharePoint 2016 Release was no exception.
“It tweaks some things that proved problematic in 2013 (such as mobile and user experience modifications), and belatedly starts to address an increasingly urgent need around hybrid SharePoint deployments,” Tony Byrne, founder of Real Story Group told CMSWire.
No. 2
CMSWire reporter Derek Walter said a lot of companies that are struggling to make sense of the leading collaboration platforms — then proved it through the popularity of his article, Slack vs. HipChat vs. Yammer.
Slack is the current darling among startups and established companies alike for its ease of use and ability to integrate with other services. But Atlassian’s HipChat still has a substantial following, with some new features on the way to try and steal a bit of Slack’s thunder. And you can’t count out Microsoft’s Yammer, which has deep ties into Office 365.
No. 1
Carrie Basham Young, principal and CEO of Talk Social to Me, looked at what Microsoft appeared to be doing with Yammer, the collaboration platform it acquired for $1.4 million, in So Now Microsoft Axes the Yammer Community Team.
Microsoft bought the community-building product Yammer for a billion dollars in 2012, and less than four years later, it has laid off about 40 remaining community-building Customer Success Managers (CSM). These are the people whose blood, sweat and tears helped companies like yours turn collaboration into a success at your company.
Happy Reading
We hope you enjoy this recap of our top digital workplace stories and continue reading our coverage of the evolution of work in the year ahead.
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