One of the key ideas that motivated me to join BoardVantage seven years ago was the opportunity to work directly at the very highest levels in corporate America. I felt that if we could succeed with boards – a very demanding group – then we could succeed anywhere in an organization. In fact as early as 2005, users on the periphery of board work recognized benefits of our unique combination of security, unmatched by existing “line of business” systems.

Even today there are plenty of board members who have never used email, so BoardVantage has a fundamentally different approach than most software vendors. I think we can fairly claim to understand ease of use. We know that phrases like “Instruct your users…” work much better on PowerPoint than they work in reality.

M&A discussions and CEO evaluations among many other topics make board content THE most sensitive in an organization. As a trusted vendor to the F-100, including global banks, I know we’ve earned our security stripes.

We’re now witnessing a revolution in social computing – one that has brought new ways of working to many, as well as new paradigms of interaction. Fabulously successful in the consumer space, these systems stumble inside the enterprise. Facebook and Twitter may be a great way to stay in contact with relatives or for marketing to converse with a retail audience, but it is hardly an appropriate vehicle for enterprise-caliber collaboration. They lack even the pretense of serious business tools and given that their models rely upon access and sale (to advertisers) of user data present unfathomable security risk.

About 2 years ago, we started to develop the next generation Board Portal, one that would not only support boards, but would also support project teams. This new platform consists of a suite of collaboration tools to provide visibility for management, and increase productivity of professionals. The system leverages recent technical developments in social media to deliver a rich experience. One that engages users yet does not sacrifice access control or process discipline.

It’s taken us some time to get to this point, since we are insistent on maintaining our reputation for quality. That means delivering finished product. Living in a state of continual beta may work well for companies like Google, but not for us. We’ve also taken our time to fully understand internal processes to see where our nextgen portal can help. We offer tools, not toys.

Our core market remains boards, whose unique requirements still require a tailored solution, one that incorporates the best practices of the F-1000 and leading not-for-profits. But if you’ve ever had a need to collaborate and satisfy both the security demands of your IT department, as well as the ease of use expectations of your users, then I would urge you to take a look at BoardVantage. For boards and beyond. (more…)