Our framework for understanding social media divides an enterprise’s operations into two main types: data-centric process and people-centric process. Examples of the former include accounting, inventory control and CRM. The software that serves these markets is developed by vendors such as Oracle, SAP and SalesForce. It is a mature and well-established sector. People-centric processes are collaborative in nature. Examples include budget planning, contract management and RFP responses. There are many others of course. But, unlike their data-centric counterparts, people-centric processes are still served by messy ad-hoc approaches, combining email, shared drives and even hard copy.

The key to Web-enabling people-centric process is a thorough understanding of its structure and the roles of its participants:

• Contributors generate the bulk of the content. As power users of the system, they are typically staff members whose job it is to produce finished results on hard deadlines. For a salesperson it might mean responding to an RFP, which means the ability to access previous RFP’s as reusable assets. But it will also require access to legal review, pricing policy, or other resources. A second example is the board administrator who needs to produce a board book from scratch or respond to last minute changes for tomorrow’s audit committee meeting. What these two examples have in common is the need for direct access to critical content, unencumbered by gatekeepers, yet controlled by permissions so that access is available, but without sacrificing process.
• Approvers are typically members of management. Their world is one of Managing Chaos. Their prism is email and Blackberry. Visibility for them is key, since the earlier a problem surfaces, the greater the chances of resolution before it turns into a crisis. They rely on process discipline to make sure that the RFP has the correct terms and conditions or the meeting minutes or board material the proper review cycle before release to the board.
• Consumers are the recipients of the information. They may outnumber contributors from 5:1 to 25:1 or more. Even while their numbers are great they only access the system occasionally. But don’t be fooled. They depend on the system for vital tasks, and they will express displeasure if they can’t get what they want, when they want it. They are your partners, your customers, your sales team or your board, and they are not inclined to wade through poorly presented content. They equate ease-of-use with familiarity. They are not open to training. Presentation should suit the consumer’s needs, not the application’s constraints. Any system that does not meet that bar will fail to achieve the hoped-for adoption.

Many collaboration vendors support only one of these roles. They offer a point solution for contributors, while ignoring the key role that consumers play. Or focus on consumers while ignoring the producers. Point solutions that rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul can always count on the support of Paul but will leave the process ill-served. That’s why we developed a platform, and invested heavily in architecture with the richness and flexibility to support all three roles. For contributors we provide full text search and rich visual thumbnails to quickly identify content for reuse. For the approvers we provide full auditing and a comprehensive approvals based process (Management Through Visibility). For consumers we deliver content within branded pages to maximize impact. If there seems a lot of functionality inside our platform, it’s because it’s needed to support three distinct groups of users. One-size-fits-all point solutions (“quick, let’s install a micro-blogging system”) that neglect the importance of these roles will not succeed.

People-centric processes require people-centric tools. That’s what BoardVantage NextGen delivers.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 25th, 2010 at 12:47 AM and is filed under Collaboration Benefits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.