MC+A

Websites are a great deal like phone numbers – they both can be tedious to monitor and memorize. If I could not store all my phone numbers in my phone, I would have to resort to the process of keeping a little black book. Why dial all the digits of a friend’s phone number when I can simply say “call Bob?”  Social Bookmarking has evolve to aid in the very similar task of trying to remember and enter all of your frequented websites.  The user is able to surf the web, find content they like, and mark it so they, or someone with a similar interest, can come back later.  They are also able to organize these sites into separate folders by how they are relevant to your life.  While working on such issues may seem somewhat trivial we need to take into consideration the larger impact that these solutions have made.  Social Bookmarking has become a part of the Social Networking game (enter Twitter, Facebook, etc) that this world has come to know and love.  Millions of people are sharing bookmarked content with various online communities.  Others are then able to comment on information that they may have (and often not) found interesting.  The added element of sharing your bookmarked content with everyone on the web has giving the concept of Social Bookmarking some staying power.

Brief History of Social Bookmarking

The concept of online bookmarking has been around since 1996 but has long since evolved.  Many organizations that were paving the way for this new concept collapsed as they had no real plan to earn any money.  “I don’t think it was that we were ‘too early’ or that we got killed when the bubble burst.  I believe it all came down to product design, and to some very slight differences in approach,” said the founder of Blink back in 2005.  As a result of these failures many newcomers to the Social Bookmarking had to reinvent the business model of their predecessors.

Corporate Social Bookmarking

Then corporate Social Bookmarking arrived on the scene, focusing their attention on commercializing an already successful concept.  Observing the short comings of those that came before, companies like Connectbeam have made Social Bookmarking a powerful business tool.  The main difference between traditional and corporate bookmarking is the end result that is sought after.  Originally, sharing with a community was just to receive feedback and share opinions. However, corporate bookmarking helped solidify a company’s scattered intellectual assets.

For example, Company X has been working on a task or project has been exceedingly difficult (for any number of reasons), but Company X utilized a Social Bookmarking system and the knowledge workers on the project were able to find the colleague with the necessary experience and expertise.  Looking at the web content that they have tagged, the knowledge workers may find the answers they were seeking.  Nonetheless, at the very least, they have located a co-worker that may be best suited to assist with the critical mission.

From my personal experience, I can say that the Connectbeam Spotlight appliance is the best product available to provide the bookmarking service for any size business.  Overall, it is not a difficult appliance to administer. Spotlight integrates seamlessly with many systems our company already had in place (Active Directory, SharePoint, Outlook, Google Search Appliance, etc.).  Today, our company is more efficient when it comes to collaborating on projects and teammates can guide one another without searching long and hard.  Adding the Connectbeam appliance to our GSA’s crawl allows us to add additional content that has already seen some quality control. For some great return results, combine SharePoint content and Connectbeam bookmarks together.  You will definitely see a serious ROI with this business solution.<

References

• itList
• http://www.mail-archive.com/scout-report@hypatia.cs.wisc.edu/msg00038.html
• http://www.aripaparo.com/archive/001456.html

Most likely, you have heard this saying before, but have you really thought about what it really means?

Quite frankly, there are times when I have felt like it would be better when I win and the other party loses. This may be true in cheering for your favorite sports team or even more so if you are on the team. However, in business, it’s different. Think about it. Do you really want the cheapest price? Or would it be more accurate to say you want the best value?

Before you answer, think about this.

Cheapest price = short term actual cash leaving your company’s balance sheet and going to the company you are buying’s balance sheet. If short term is ALL that you are interested in, then this may be a good philosophy. Granted, in business, the “what have you done for me lately” philosophy will always be a factor. But, more importantly for most of us, we want and need to be a going concern for the long term. With this in mind, my argument for having a win / win philosophy fits the business model more appropriately. Let’s say that your company can buy a widget from “The CP (Cheapest Price) company” or from “The BV (Best Value) company”. Buying from the CP company, like I mentioned before, means the least out of your Cash Account……for now. What about the support that you need later? Is it possible for a company to sell at the cheapest price AND to be able to pay a competent support person to provide you support later when you need it? Good luck, you’ll probably be on your own, wasting time and money. One step further, will they even be in business for you to contact them?

Let’s take your company’s need to implement a GSA, Workshare, or Connectbeam solution. That’s where MC + A becomes the BV company. You could buy the GSA, for instance, from a reseller and pay your IT professionals their salary (time and opportunity cost) to figure out a basically one time, one use implementation and not know if you are getting the full capability out of your GSA… or you could engage MC+A and have your GSA up and running, using very little of your own IT resources and know very confidently that you are making the most of your new GSA purchase in as little as a few days.

That’s win / win.

Social bookmarking has begun to see enterprise use as sites like Del.icio.us and reddit gain use by consumers. This technology allows users to share links to information they find useful. By combining this technology with enterprise search, it allows users to combine the power of search engine relevancies with a democratic method to determine usefulness. MC+A has recently partnered with ConnectBeam.

As ConnectBeam describes themselves:

“Connectbeam brings the ‘Web 2.0′ information-sharing, collaboration, and ease of use of sites like MySpace, Flickr, and del.icio.us to the daily work-flow of enterprise employees. It helps companies boost innovation, improve decisions, intensify collaboration, and build critical stakeholder relationships.”

Ephraim Schwartz, from information week, recently posted an article describing the company here.

The appliance comes out of the box with the following features: Bookmarking,Tags,Share Information,Find Information – & People,Dynamic Profile and Recent Activity.