Is Social Business Collaboration Software The New Groupware 2.0?
Groupware technology has been around for a long time now. Almost every business organization has been using some form of groupware or another to create a collaborative work environment independent from geography and location of employees. The Usabilityfirst.com website defines groupware technology as follows:
“Groupware is technology designed to facilitate the work of groups. This technology may be used to communicate, cooperate, coordinate, solve problems, compete, or negotiate. While traditional technologies like the telephone qualify as groupware, the term is ordinarily used to refer to a specific class of technologies relying on modern computer networks, such as email, newsgroups, videophones, or chat.”
When you think of traditional groupware software like Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange, you think of a suite of email management, chat, address book, messaging, document transfer, and so on. However, the features and tools used in collaborative efforts online have evolved into what we now commonly known as social networking and social media software. Blogs, instant messaging, micro-blogging, wikis, online events, groups, forums, and video sharing are more along the lines of what we associate with online collaboration and interaction in our every day communication with others on the web. So where does traditional groupware technology stand in today’s context where social networking software platforms for businesses are picking up momentum?
Well, some features of traditional groupware will continue to be used, such as email and perhaps chat/instant messaging, but the use of social media platforms integrated in business websites for internal collaboration is rapidly taking over with many large corporations switching over to social business collaboration platforms. More interesting than the adoption of this technology by larger organizations, is that social business collaboration software platforms like our own Communifire are just as accessible to the smaller and mid-sized businesses and cost is no longer a barrier. The geographical boundaries of businesses are being broken down quickly and the concept of “physically being present” at a workplace is blurring just as fast. For this reason, the need for groupware or business collaboration platforms is greater than before.
With the evolution of how we choose to collaborate online outside the workplace, groupware and collaboration platforms need to evolve and incorporate those features. The very nature of business collaboration has already changed, whether we like it or not. Now the only question is, when are businesses going to integrate this into their websites?
Is social business collaboration the new groupware 2.0?
