Anthony J. BradleyI just finished a few days in silicon valley meeting with numerous companies. These travel days, if successful, are both exhausting and highly rewarding. I often meet with 6-8 companies in a day. This trip certainly didn’t disappoint. Here are a few notes from my travels.
I met with CEO Paul Pluschkell of Spigit. Spigit is a robust social software innovation engine platform and Gartner profiled them in our “Cool Vendors in the High-Performance Workplace, 2008″ research. Paul is very passionate on social software in General and Spigit in particular (of course) and he talks very fast. I also am passionate and talk very fast so sound waves and gesticulations filled the room. There definitely was some mind melding going on there. We talked about the economy and he showed me his leads board. It was good to see that his pipeline is healthy. In addition, VCs are approaching him. This reinforces what I’ve seen elsewhere, that although not immune to the economic downturn, many companies and investors recognize the tremendous potential of social software.
Then it was off to meet with Vassil Mladjov CEO and founder of Blogtronix. Despite what their name implies they are a social software suite provider (i.e., not just blogs). They are doing some very interesting work on extending the concept of a social graph to a knowledge graph illuminating not just relationships between people but also between different content products and between people and content. This “graph enhancement” enables a more robust capability for discovering relevant people and content. Like Spigit, their pipeline looks healthy (including Europe).
I also met with Sanjay Dholakia Chief Marketing Officer of Lithium Technologies. Sanjay ushered me into their game room with some slick video games and a pristine ping pong table. This was the backdrop he used to underscore the companies history and strong belief in gaming theory and its critical role in successful social solutions. We spent much of the time talking about how fun and competition combine as a strong incentive to community adoption. I frequently talk to clients about their concerns over adoption and I somewhat provocatively state that, “If it isn’t fun, it isn’t web 2.0.” I’m trying to break the legacy thinking that if your having fun you really aren’t working. Employing gaming theory to make the experience fun, tapping into passions, and fostering healthy competition can be powerful social motivators. Functionality around gaining levels based on community determined value, and winning points or “virtual currency” from productive and successful participation can go a long way towards adoption and active participation. Many companies shy away from enabling the community to determine a person’s “social status.” This is often out of a fear that the community value structure will undermine the corporate structure. It will take time but I believe our status in the company will more and more be determined by our status in relevant communities. BTW, I challenged Sanjay to a table tennis match and he promptly declined. Forest Gump I’m not, but I can put a mean spin on the ball.
You can find profiles of these vendors in Gartner’s latest Social Software Magic Quadrant. A subscription or fee is required to access this Gartner research.
Category: social software Tags: vendor meetings
1 response so far ↓
1 Sanjay Dholakia February 27, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Thanks for the visit and the conversation, Anthony. I’m not sure I recall the table tennis challenge events exactly the same as you do, though
I do recall full and complete agreement on the importance of the link between ‘fun’ and ‘engaging’ behavior in terms of community success. I do also recall that we agreed philosophically on the fact that many neglect the question, “What is my purpose?” Things are never about “cool technologies”. They are about a business result. I may be paraphrasing, but, “If you can’t show me how it puts dollars on my bottom line — and how you have done it — we probably shouldn’t be talking.” In any case, I really enjoyed our discussion and sharing some of our customer stories. Most importantly, I now know that the next time you are out, I cannot let you leave the building without that game of ping pong. Perhaps it was the story about your tennis ball machine that scared me off. 
Sanjay Dholakia
CMO, Lithium Technologies
@sdholakia