Are multiple activity streams the way forward for enterprise platforms...?
As an enterprise community manager, I am often faced with varied user questions and needs. One that has been surfacing on and off recently is around the ability for more granular filtering to find relevant content.
As an enterprise community manager, I am often faced with varied user questions and needs. One that has been surfacing on and off recently is around the ability for more granular filtering to find relevant content.
Before I move on let me briefly explain how Jive--which
powers our social platform--works. Jive offers users the ability to customize
their two activity streams--one stream reflects everything the user is Following on the platform and this
includes people, places and content. The other reflects what the user is Tracking--and Jive makes a subtle
distinction between "follow"
and "track". Tracked
content, people or places are deemed to be of greater relevance to the user and
all activities and communication in these get captured in a separate stream
called What Matters: Communication
along with @ mentions and direct messages to the user.
Nevertheless, in
spite of this level of segregation and filtering, I have had users requesting
for further granularity, more specific filtering options, and ability to follow
tags and such. Some deep diving and conversations exposed that users were
missing or feared missing out on information. As is wont to happen with
activity streams, content quickly moves below the fold and runs the risk of
getting overlooked. A heavy user of TweetDeck
and Hootsuite, I could identify with
the need for further granularity. Both these applications make my Twitter use a
breeze by allowing me to set my filters and create multiple streams.
Moreover, from an enterprise context, finding relevant
content at the point of need is of paramount importance. While I was surfing
the net to see what other organizations/users are doing, I stumbled across an
interesting posts by Alan Lepofsky that seemed to mirror what I was thinking: Making
Activity Stream More Manageable. I have quoted from it here: If we are going to continue down the path of
taking dozens of different pieces of information and cramming them into one
place, then a single stream is not the way to go.
In a different post, he writes: … I am concerned that having status updates, file sharing, Q&A,
news links, CRM updates, social media feeds, workflow approvals, ERP orders,
support tickets, polls/surveys and a dozen other sources of information all piped
into the same stream can make social software almost unusable.
The more I think about it, I am beginning to feel that
multiple activity streams is the way to go. Moving from a locked down inbox to
an activity stream is a paradigm shift, and one that is well on its way to
taking place. And reflects how far we have come. Nonetheless, enhancing user
experience by giving them more control to filter in what they need or filter
out as the case maybe will lead to greater adoption of social business
platforms. Enterprise platforms will also need to give users greater
flexibility and the ability to create personalized lists, follow tags, and so
on. I am sure those days are not too far away and social business platforms
like Jive and SocialText are improving by leaps and bounds.
Will greater
granularity kill serendipity?
I don't think so. With content being created, shared and
commented upon every second of every day even in the enterprise, it is
essential that users be able to effectively filter and curate for themselves in
an intuitive manner. Some of it will get taken care of by smart, automated
filtering options like Jive's Recommendation engine, which suggest content
based on the user's prior activity on the platform. But this may soon not be
enough.
What do you think? Have you encountered similar needs? I
would love to hear from you.
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