Socialmedia.biz has a summary of a presentation Stephen Jagger gave all about how he’s converted his businesses to use a wide range of web apps and online tools. It is a rather extreme example – hosting everything in the cloud, or removing the need for office space are probably not options for many companies. For small, active businesses though, these are some really useful ideas and discussions.
The base of the services is hosted Google Mail, plus Talk, Voice and Sites.Yammer and Skype are used for internal and client communication. It seems he has quite firm grip on how the services work and what they are best used for. The tools fit well into observations of what gives good results when exploring social tools and collaborative attitudes for business. Andrew McAfee‘s SLATES is the major guide in this area, along with some additions from Dion Hinchcliffe which cover the atmosphere required to allow the tools to function effectively.
I do have some questions about how open and sharing the businesses are. It seems that the tools are viewed more as promotion aids than enabling client feedback. This may not be true, but it is difficult to find a mention of how the Enterprise 2.0 tools and strategy involved the round trip from employee to client and back.
In any case, this case study ties well with this bnet feature: putting Web 2.0 to work. For a more traditional company, the four steps outlined in that article are quite helpful.
- Begin by using a web 2.0 tool to address a current need. This could involve test-driving a free web-based app or installing an add-on for current software.
- Any new movement needs support. Many employees just want to do their work and get home, but for those that like to experiment (I’m in this bunch – I always like looking under the hood), this is the perfect opportunity to help shape the direction of a project.
- Experimentation is the key – many services and software are very cheap or free, so why not test a whole range of offerings.
- “Decisions about which Web 2.0 tools to use within your company should be made centrally, but the question of how to use them should be left to individuals, says Harvard’s McAfee.”
This feature set is certainly worth a look.
