Companies stand to gain from reorganizing their data into a social collaboration framework, but a foundation of clean data and good governance practices is first required, according to an Open Text executive.
Bill Forquer, executive vice president of marketing at Open Text, told ZDNet Asia in an interview, companies should look to going "Web 2.0" with enterprise data, that is, to apply social networking tools such as wikis, forums and tagging.
Forquer was in Singapore to promote the company's release of what it terms as the "Bloom initiative"--Web 2.0 capabilities in its enterprise content management (ECM) product offering.
"We see people investing heavily in good data and compliance [measures]. At some point, we see companies putting all of this data into a way that will engage users and extend content as well," he said, explaining that information can be "extended" meaningfully by having users append data with tags and links.
He hopes companies will do this by way of Web 2.0 tools in their ECM systems. "Collaboration apps and systems get better as people use them," he said.
2.0 not for everyone yet
But before companies can take advantage of such tools, good governance has to come first. This means companies that are not well along their ECM track should not look to "2.0", said Forquer.
"There is a maturity level associated with ECM platforms. [Companies should] get good content governance and understand records management before taking on 2.0," he said.
Culture presents another barrier to social collaboration tools taking off in the workplace. This includes reluctance among employees to participate in activities over and beyond regular work.
"It depends on the direction set by the company," said Forquer. Companies can overcome this cultural barrier by making participation tasks part of everyday interaction. "Companies should think through the user experience, and not make it extra work. Make it easy to comment and respond, by capturing smaller units of information, like just a thumbs up or down."
But he sees Web 2.0 has an inevitable shift in enterprise computing, thanks to the advent of popular online sites such as Facebook. "The business will adapt to what's powerful in the consumer world, and this is a great example," he said.
Open Text is also available through its independent software vendor (ISV) partnerships with SAP and Microsoft, providing ECM capabilities which plug into the two software giants' offerings. At present, users of Microsoft SharePoint are able to get Open Text's social tools. It is currently not available for the SAP plug-in yet.
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