Burton Group Launches New Collaboration & Content Strategies Service

Over the past few weeks my blog has been quiet and I apologize for dropping off the radar screen without much notice. For the past several months I’ve been involved in a project that became a priority in April as things came down to the wire. Today, that project is complete. I’m proud to announce (if you have not already seen the press release or the revised web site) that Burton Group has launched a new research and advisory service: Collaboration and Content Strategies.

This is an exciting time to be an analyst covering how people and groups (e.g., teams, communities, networks) communicate, share information and collaborate. A recent flurry of articles on how companies are revisiting growth and innovation strategies highlight the role people have in influencing how companies grow and innovate. The Economist had a special report in January of this year while Business Week devoted a cover page and special report on innovative companies. Finally, more industry and media experts are talking about “the future of work” and what methods and practices enterprises need to consider to improve the productivity and performance of information workers.

The workplace as we knew it just a decade ago is in midst of transformation. Today’s workplace is a much more virtual environment. More workers are permanently mobile or spend a large percentage of their time working from remote locations (e.g., home office). The global and variable nature of business nowadays encourages organizations to expand or contract resources as needed to exploit market opportunities. This trend requires enterprises to be more agile, less centralized, less hierarchical, and less reliant on command-and-control management structures. As decision-making is localized and pushed increasingly to the edge, communication, information sharing and collaboration become evermore critical than years ago. While growth and innovation are top priorities for executives, cost and efficiency pressures remain. There is more sensitivity to risk and a constant need to ensure that compliance and other regulatory mandates are satisfied.

Charting a course through the maze of technology associated with communication, content and collaboration is not easy. Here are just a few of the complex issues facing IT strategists and decision-makers:

A tremendous amount of innovation is happening in the consumer market. How do organizations take advantage of blogs, wikis, podcasting, tagging, social bookmark services, social networking and other emerging technologies? What are the governance issues? What is the state of standards concerning these technologies? How do they best fit into enterprise architecture frameworks? Will these tools be delivered by mainstream vendors – if so, when?

Major vendors (e.g., IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle) are moving forward with platforms that generalize communication, collaboration and content technologies into a common set of infrastructure services. Does an enterprise have to commit to a single vendor? How well do these collaboration and content stacks compare against each other and best of breed alternatives? What are the decision and evaluation criteria architects and infrastructure planners need to consider?

A myriad of non-technology issues remain as well. What are the organizational dynamics around high performing teams, communities of practice, and social networks? What role do groups involved in human capital management, organizational development and knowledge management have within enterprise collaboration and content strategies?

Burton Group has put together a strong team. I am very proud of what we are offering to the market and to our clients. Our service is built on a foundation which emphasizes a collaboration and content reference architecture to help guide decision-making. Our analysts not only deliver a deep assessment of collaboration and content technologies but also possess extensive knowledge on how to apply the technology to deliver real solutions. Finally, we possess a thorough understanding of the organizational dynamics that influence people and their interactivities around work.

This is a service that is hitting the ground at a full sprint. At the Burton Group Inflection Point site, podcasts will be available on various collaboration and content-related topics. Additionally, here you will find a listing of service content that already exists. Although access is limited to clients, for those interested, Burton Group is providing a complimentary preview of the research available Collaboration and Content Strategies for a limited time. For more details, send an e-email clientservices@burtongroup.com or call 800.824.9924.

Comments

[Liz Roche]

Congratulations, Mike (aka "Sherpa")! You are indeed one of the granddaddy's of content and collaboration. I remember creating the CRM technology ecosystem "three legged stool" -- you were responsible for the third leg of "collaborative CRM" in addition to operational CRM and analytical CRM. You were all over "workplace computing" back when no one really thought beyond Lotus Notes and e-mail. you've been on the leading edge of every trend related to collaboration and I'm thrilled that you're back to your roots. Burton Group is incredibly lucky to have you and now that you've put part of the "band" back together with the addition of Craig Roth as service director, the firm is way lucky to have him too. Best wishes, your favorite CRM Diva