With the upcoming launch of IBM's newest Connections release, I can't help but get excited as to what's about to happen. And of course, when I see the product that I work on as the Cover Story of the USA Today, that gets me even more excited! As you probably saw in Ed Brill's blog yesterday, the USA Today ran a piece on how companies are seeing employee productivity increase with the use of social collaboration tools, such as IBM Connections. The article highlights Newly Weds Foods which uses IBM Connnections for its 2,700 employees to help them share sauces, batters, breadings, and more. To see a video of Newly Weds Foods testimonial, check this out. Also, check out the picture I took of the paper's cover story:
A picture of yesterday's Cover Story in the
— Luis Benitez (@lbenitez) August 14, 2012@usatoday, the paper with largest circulation in the US#ibmcnx twitter.com/lbenitez/statu…
So the next question is, how big is the opportunity for social collaboration tools ? Well, another interesting piece that I ran into yesterday was the 2012 Digital Workplace Trends Report. In it, only 8% of enterprises surveyed claim to have a social business platform rolled out enterprise wide. The number at first seemed very small to me, but when you compare that with 33% of organizations that say they have sporadic deployments, it makes sense. However, it concerns me that companies are still taking a silo'ed approach instead of taking an approach where silos are destroyed.
What's very encouraging, and validates IDC prediction that spending will continue to increase in this area, is that the report found that 47% of organizations are planning to increase their investment in social collaboration tools.
Exciting times ahead!