Greg Lloyd is the president and co-founder of Traction Software Inc., creator of the Traction TeamPage enterprise social software product. He's been involved in Enterprise 2.0 software for many years, long before the term was even coined. We asked him about changes across the market over the years and his company's current strategy.

FierceContentManagement: You've been watching this space we now call Enterprise 2.0 for many years. In fact, we first met at the Business of Blogging Conference in 2003. How has this space changed over the years?

Greg Lloyd: In my opinion, the biggest change is broad recognition that using the web for collaboration and communication is a simple, practical and effective alternative to email. Email certainly isn't dead--it's a valuable channel for notification and point to point communication. But most people now have enough experience or exposure to web collaboration using Twitter, Wikis, Blogs, Facebook and universal web search to see how these capabilities can be useful in business life. I credit Andrew McAfee with making the business case for Enterprise 2.0--as well as coining the term. His role as a bright, articulate and independent business school professor opened the door for a lot of serious interest and discussion. 

FCM: What are the key business benefits of collaboration using Enterprise 2.0 tools?

GL: The primary benefits are reducing friction and cost of core business activities, while simultaneously opening the door to innovation based on broader awareness of what's going on in your business, who knows what, and what they learned. 

What's revolutionary is the ability to use scaling and universal access of the Web for secure collaboration spanning barriers of space and time--within any organization, or connecting customer, suppliers and other stakeholders anywhere in the world.

The February, 2011 Deloitte Study "Social Software for Business Performance - The missing link in social software: Measurable Business improvements" includes a case study analysis of Traction TeamPage customer Alcoa Fastening Systems. Deloitte highlighted "...a 61 percent reduction in time required for compliance activities" documented by Alcoa. I believe other Enterprise 2.0 early adopters achieved similar returns, but don't have the long-term horizontal data to document it clearly.

FCM: What in your opinion is holding back wide spread of adoption of enterprise collaboration tools?

GL: I believe there are two factors:

• The classic Geoffrey Moore "Crossing the Chasm" distinction between early adopters and the early majority. I'm optimistic that enterprise social software has crossed the chasm and we're in the early adopter stage.

• Unlike most innovative technologies, enterprise social software entered many people's perceptions with the baggage that it was offering "rainbows and unicorns" rather than practical value. I believe Andy McAfee and reports like the Deloitte study effectively make the case that the value is real.

In 2008 Andy McAfee made the case that innovation based on understanding of Enterprise 2.0 capabilities offers the prospect of sustainable competitive advantage that is rare, valuable and difficult for competitors to successfully imitate. Strong words.

In 2011 the previously mentioned Deloitte study said: "Senior executives are skeptical of the value of social software. Their reluctance is understandable but self-defeating... Early adopters of social software have the potential to reap financial rewards and develop skills and experience that can help build a stronger competitive position over time. Social software has unique capabilities to address current operating challenges and improve operating metrics."

FCM: What relationship do you see between content management, enterprise collaboration tools, search and knowledge management?

GL: I like the "Systems of Record" and "Systems of Engagement" distinction introduced by Geoffrey Moore and the AIIM task force in October 2010, adding transactional software like ERP, MRP and other transaction oriented CRM to "Systems of Record".

I believe the important point is supporting business context--not business process in the sense of transactional workflow or automated systems. I believe that functionally specialized transactional systems in an organization will likely remain silos of structured information--but market forces will drive vendors to make their content addressable and searchable using web standards and services--with appropriate authentication and privacy in context.

These functionally specialized systems will also signal their status using social computing standards that are now starting to take shape. This will push routine reporting and dealing with exceptions from transactional systems into the "social" places where people can stay informed, recognize issues and exceptions and decide what to do. 

In an ideal world, transactional systems would provide authenticated access to web addressable content or analysis, signals based on routing activity or exceptions, web sensible control interfaces--and not a much more. Most human access would be handled on the Web rather than transactional processing side. I believe the web has become a valid, scalable and secure alternative to proprietary stacks for integrating most enterprise software at the user experience level.

More on Observable Work and enterprise search can be found on my blog.

FCM: Your latest version of your Traction TeamPage uses a project-driven metaphor. Why did you decide as an organization to tie collaboration to projects in this fashion?

GL: I believe the ability to link plans, actions, discussion and work product (in any system of record) in context is the key to unlocking the value of social software for businesses of any size. I like what you said in May: "Using the project metaphor as the basis for understanding information in the corporate social stream, the idea is to give you a hook on which to hang the information."

TeamPage focuses on action tracking and coordination embedded in the flow of work. I use a jazz analogy. When you watch a skilled team in action, it's like watching a great jazz group--there are themes, there is structure, and there are limits, but a team shines in individual excellence combined with coordination, improvisation, innovation, handling exceptions and seemingly effortless awareness of where others are and where they're headed. 

Every business activity involves some measure of action planning and tracking. People have lived with action tracking systems that range from a list on the back of an envelope, to getting things done style planning, to multilevel project plans for large and complex products like aircraft

The TeamPage model focuses on making it simple for individuals and teams to plan and coordinate the daily activities that drive effective teamwork. This level of coordination can quickly become too complex for the simplest systems, but too detailed-- and close to real life--to be effectively modeled, tracked and managed in real time using software designed solely for top down project resource modeling.

This has practical value whether you're using Enterprise 2.0 software for product design, sales, supply chain collaboration, manufacturing, consulting, research or any other business activity at any scale. 

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