The Road to the Enterprise 2.0 Conference

I'm on my way to the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston this week to present, demo and share CubeTree with conference attendees and industry pundits. It's very exciting to be headed to a conference where I can talk in-person to people figuring out how to improve collaboration and communication to improve business execution. In the past this conference fostered many conversations about adoption strategies and road-maps for adopting Enterprise 2.0 collaboration tools and I am looking forward to more of the same.

The conference this year is titled "Business Powered by Collaboration" and is packed with presentations and content from key luminaries in the industry. We'll be presenting too, and sharing the best practices and tips we've heard from you about adopting collaboration tools. We're going to participate in an innovative panel discussion called "Social Vendor Idol", an "American Idol" style contest between several vendors of enterprise collaboration platforms. It should be a feisty session and healthy competition in the name of helping attendees find the best collaboration platform to meet their needs. If you plan on attending, be sure to cast your vote!

Next week I'll share what I learn at the conference. In the mean time here's what I'll be discussing with conference goers. These are the top five business challenges you've told us you're using CubeTree to solve:

Email Overload - Employees receive too many emails a day, many times because the sender wants to make sure the information is not missed, but the sender doesn’t consider if all recipients really need it. Enterprise Social Networks enable you to filter out unnecessary content by letting you decide what information you want to follow.

Innovation - Innovation comes from throughout an organization, not just from the top. When all employees are engaged and information about organizational goals is readily available, better decisions are made. Enterprise Social Networks support collaboration and break down departmental silos.

Engagement - The new global workforce has grown up with, benefited from, and knows how to use these tools. Deployment of Enterprise Social Networking technology is key to attracting and retaining these workers.

Coordinating Work - Work, especially that done by knowledge workers, is project driven. Coordinating projects over email with a sender to receiver list is not clear and too cumbersome. Tools like MS Project with complex dependencies and Gantt charts are too resource intensive and difficult to adapt to changing business needs. Enterprise Social Networks that provide task management and ad hoc groups enable knowledge workers to work smarter and get more done.

Security - Employees need collaboration tools to get their work done, but consumer grade solutions don’t provide the security that enterprises require. Enterprise Social Networking platforms enable IT organizations to maintain and control their data and ensure its security.