With a description like that, surely we’re not the only people getting excited.

In the past, we have written extensively on not only social software/technologies, but we’ve also spent a good deal of time discussing the people, networks and culture that make those technologies successful (here, here and here are a few examples).

Which is why a few months back, a blog post from Assetmap on Social Capital caught our eye.  The author of the post uses Silicon Valley legend Ron Conway to make the case that Social Capital (more so than financial capital) has been the hallmark of his investing success.   The author contends that start-ups seek out Conway not for his financial clout, but for the wealth of intellectual resources he is networked into.

As we do with any good blog, we dug deeper in the posts, and sure enough we found another gem.  This time, the blog post offered a great insight into the new debate around “Interest Networks vs. Social Networks.”

The more material we read from Assetmap, the more we think these guys really “get it.”

But, we won’t use up this whole post to review Assetmap blog post or speculate about their product.  Instead, we’re hoping to build some social capital for Orbital RPM, our readers, and our clients by directing them to one of the newest thought leaders in the social software space.  Assetmap – an up and comer to keep your eye on.

Huddle is building a presence in the increasingly popular Collaboration/Project Management Enterprise space, landing notable clients such as Procter & Gamble, Edelman, Disney and HTC. Cofounder Andy McLoughlin has the described the service as having more functionality than 37Signal’s Basecamp, yet less complexity than Microsoft’s SharePoint (More here).

Huddle shares many similar functional components as other SBS providers, but here are a few interesting features we found:

Integration into Microsoft Office applications (Video)

Built in Web Conference Call functionality (Video)

The “Whiteboard,” a quick wiki-creator (Video)

While the race is far from over in the Enterprise Collaboration Software space, one great characteristic of Huddle is that you can take it for a test ride -  Check out Huddle.

For most, resumes are simply a high-level snapshot of generally recognized terms, projects, education, certifications, etc. They’re effective for generating interview questions but do not reveal the nuanced depth of someone’s true experience; especially if their roles are heavy in knowledge-based work as most are.

Enter the challenge with the growing interest in ‘Expertise Location.’  In many discussions I’ve had people feel that by just uploading resumes/work history into a collaboration platfrom this will enable others in the organization to find the experts associated with any given topic.  Not so fast.

The problem is that a resume uploaded today is likely to be out-of-date within weeks or months.  People’s work in organizations is often quite fluid between different projects, functions and departments and not only is that nearly impossible to capture in text, almost no one is going to go back and update their uploaded resume [until their looking to submit it elsewhere].

This is where the advancements in collaboration platforms comes in handy.  Most of the platforms on the market [i.e. Jive, Socialtext, Telligent] will track the different areas in which someone is partcipating and allow others to find them based on that activity.

So when an analyst hired for their prior roles in finance is quickly sent out to your understaffed office in a high growth area they’ll be learning new skills very quickly.  These skills likely won’t make it onto their resume on your system – but they will reveal themselves through the activity generated in a collaboration platform while getting up to speed on these new competencies.

If  your collaboration system and the corresponding processes are set-up correctly you now have an expert in some unique areas that someone in the future can find and leverage.  If not, what are the chances that someone else in the same situation struggles with similar questions, challenges and roadblocks on their road to expertise?  And what is the impact to individuals and the organization when this happens?

There’s a lot of talk going on these days about how businesses need to embrace their social nature and intangible elements in order to compete [see Enterprise 2.0, Social Business Design, etc.]. The reason being that very few businesses produce anything tangible and even those that do still rely on a complex web of relationships, ideas, insight, brand, collaboration and leadership in order to do it.

This evolving understanding of the business landscape reminds me of man’s understanding of a different scape >>> space.

Until recently it was believed that our Universe of visible stuff [planets, stars, comets, gas, etc.] would continue expanding for a bit and then begin to recede. But the data didn’t agree. The expansion of the universe was actually found to be accelerating at a rate that means it will continue to expand eternally.

What’s behind this mystery? Dark matter and dark energy. Their presence is required in order to explain the behavior of the objects in space that we can see. The same is true for the networks and intangibles in organizations.

Dark matter is described as being “undetectable by its emitted radiation, but whose presence can be inferred by gravitational effects on visible matter.” Sounds like office politics to me.

Seriously, though, dark matter and dark energy are true forces with which to be reckoned. Estimates are that they make up about 95% of the known universe as the chart here shows.

Scientists were recently able to visualize these forms of matter and energy through what I’m sure is some pretty basic math [not]. What they produced was both eye-opening and jaw-dropping. It shows what was previously invisible and is allowing them to better understand it and its effect on us.

The picture here shows a lonely Hubble [to the lower left] as it peers out into the distance and sees massive clusters of galaxies [the bright spots in the image] surrounded by enormous globs of dark matter.

The ability to see these formations as well as analyze the data that comprise them allows scientists to better understand how the Universe works and how our role in it can be affected.

Until recently most organizations focused just on visible things [products, materials, warehouses, property, etc.] in order to operate and compete. The problem was that only focusing on tangible things left out the major driving forces of business today [i.e. relationships, ideas, knowledge, brand, etc.].

And just as scientists needed to be able to *see* dark matter and dark energy in order to measure and understand it, we too need ways of visualizing the critical elements of organizational performance in order to affect it in the new business landscape. Enter Organizational Network Analysis and Value Network Analysis - two tools designed to see how organizations really operate today.

An Organizational (aka Social) Network Analysis reveals the social fabric of an organizations and, depending on the question asked, can show us who people go to for information, which geographic locations that may be out of the loop, where holes may develop as a result of succession planning, and countless other scenarios.

The image here is the actual output from one of our clients with global operations. Dots=people; lines=information flow. Just knowing that you can see that there is no information flowing from site to site – it all comes through corporate. Not being able to see this as well as analyze the data behind it wouldn’t allows us to create and execute on a strategy to save money, reduce rework, increase innovation, etc.

A Value Network Analysis shows us how work really gets done from more of a process perspective. The key differentiator is that a VNA includes both the tangible [i.e. reports, deliverables, communications] as well as intangible [i.e. credibility, confidence, brand, etc.] elements that are required for success in business today.

The image here is another real example from a global client. There were several departments at headquarters whose collective objective was to support the activities of various global sites but they had never been able to visualize how their activities were affecting the sites. The VNA revealed that despite their best intentions, the sites [the oval on far left; mid-way up vertically] were not receiving the intended support and allowed us to create a strategy that coordinated and focused these activities into a process that reduced workload and better supported stakeholders in the field.

The topics of Social Media, Social Networking, Enterprise 2.0, etc. are all the buzz these days. There’s even a raging debate on whether to include the word ‘social’ [my opinion is that 'intangibles' is more inclusive/accurate than social but not nearly as sexy]. Scratch the surface, though, and much of these discussions revolve around technology. I’m the first to admit that there are some pretty slick tech offerings out there to help organizations operate in this new landscape but to implement them correctly there must be a comprehensive understanding of the whole environment.

So just as scientists have leveraged Hubble and some wicked math to learn about how our Universe is structured and therefore how we can play in it, businesses must have a deep understanding of their culture, ecosystem, processes, people, etc. before launching any of these social [intangible] initiatives. So…what does your organization really look like? Can you illustrate the invisible forces that are truly determining your path?

Although it’s flying off the shelves, SharePoint is known to be strong when documents are the central focus – this creates space in the market for SharePoint’s Featured Partners who extend the functionality to support communities of practice, knowledge networks, innovation and more.

As I look at these after-market products as compared to the potential that collaboration and learning communities can bring to an organization I have to wonder how long it will take before one is just gobbled up and integrated right into SharePoint?

One of our projects now is hung up in IT due to our desire to use a SharePoint plug-in ASP provider with Community of Practice functionality – it’ll be nice when all of this comes in one ‘box.’

For many of the organizations that I speak/work with regarding knowledge networks/communities of practice they have [or are planning on implementing] a collaboration software package with many slick bells and whistles but without a clear path and strategy for getting up and running – this often results in an empty knowledge landscape with little showing except for some bells and whistles strewn about.

Even in the CIO world it’s popular to say that collaboration and innovation isn’t about the software but what do you do in addition to buying software? 

The Iceberg in IT

The delimna I frequently witness is what I call the ‘Iceberg in IT’ conundrum.  Someone decided that people needed to collaborate more and told IT to implement a package that enables collaboration.  While a good software package is certainly a required step, I prefer to put it near last instead of first. 

Using the admittedly cliche and ubiquitous iceberg metaphor above, social software is simply the visible thing that enables collaboration to happen.  When IT is told to purchase it when there is no strategy to generate adoption, it will feel cold and barren [sorry - couldn't help it].  In order to truly affect how this can help people do their jobs there is a large amount of work that needs to done behind the scenes…hence the 7Cs of success:

• Capturing:  the notion of collaboration is foreign in many organizations so people often need to be shown what potential is there if they were to collaborate.  We always visit different geographic locations and capture [via video, audio, memory stick, etc.] what people are working on so that we can determine common topics and have some seed material to begin populating the software system.
• Connecting:  even software that’s designed to connect people will do little in that regard if left on its own.  People [especially when at the early phases] need some help connecting with one another – simple things like setting up bridge calls and facilitating conversations serve to build trust and awareness and provide nuggets of content that can be housed in the platform.
• Combining: in a dispersed organization you’re bound to find bits and pieces of similar work living in a great many places.  Helping the users combine that information using the wiki feature of a platform, for example, will show users the efficiency in working together while training them on what in the world a ‘wiki’ is.
• Contextualizing: the most effective collaboration initiatives will integrate members from an organization’s suppliers and customers and related academic institutions.  Translating that into compelling content that will make sense to your users will be critical in getting them to absorb and leverage it.
• Confirming:  similar to above, if you’re getting knowledge from various sources, care must be taken to ensure that what’s being provided is accurate information so that it can be acted upon.
• Circulating:  what good is the best information if no one knows about it?  The role of a community/network coordinator is essential in circulating news about what’s new, recent questions, etc.
• Communicating: having someone dedicated to getting the word out about the success stories in your knowledge network will go a long way in generating interest, excitement and ,of course, additional funds that will be necessary to continue operations.

Having an effective Web 2.0 collaboration platform at the center of this activity certainly will make it much easier to coordinate but the software alone [today's versions anyhow] will never replace the behind-the-scenes efforts required to start and sustain collaboration and innovation.

…How can you tell which of the many new tools is the best fit for your organization? The key is carefully analyzing the needs of the employees, says Jacob McNulty, president of Orbital RPM, a Denver consulting firm that helps companies improve collaboration. “Too often, firms get caught up looking for the newest feature rather than spending the time to understand the problem they’re trying to solve,” he says. “And, if you don’t get buy-in from your users, that will lead to a waste of time and money.”…

Read the full interview on Inc.com

• Customer Communities
• Social Media Marketing
• Crowdsourcing/Open Innovation
• Brand Monitoring

We execute on a Market Collaboration plan that allows you to not only hear the voice of your customers, influencers, partners and suppliers but participate in an on-going dialogue with them.

• Organizational Innovation Program
• Idea Campaigns for Specific Topics
• Crowdsourcing for Idea Generation

The result is an organization that enjoys a steady pipeline of ideas proactively targeting customer needs and improving business processes critical to organizational performance.  Be it operational excellence, new product development or process improvement – we incorporate all facets of the business.