Maybe I am being a little over-dramatic when I say "fail" in relation to Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs). But consider this, Facebook went from non-existence in 2004 to 2 Billion users in 2017 - 26% of the world's population. This was no mere startup success, but an event in world history. In theory, many of the wonders of social networks like Facebook were exactly applicable to business - open and spontaneous sharing across boundaries, the break down of knowledge silos, and emergent bottom-up solutions to problems from front line workers. These ESNs were going to bring about a seismic shift in organisational culture. This "social" gold rush spawned scores of innovative vendors - Yammer, SocialCast, Jive Software, Salesforce Chatter etc.
Fast forward to today. Yammer, once Microsoft's $1Bn Work 2.0 acquisition, is buried somewhere in its product pages. Socialcast was quietly put to rest this year, its loyal users nostalgically lamenting the promise never fulfilled.
But even as ESNs were slowly fading away, a simultaneous phenomena was underway. A company whimsically called Slack, offering plain ole group chat, went from non-existence in 2013 to 8M daily active users in 2018 - that's almost Facebook-like success in the business space. A number of similar solutions followed in its wake, mass market products like Cisco Spark and Atlassian Stride (since taken over by Slack), industry specific solutions like Remind for Education, or function specific solutions like our own uShare for sales.
It is no coincidence that the resurgence of group chat coincided with the demise of ESNs. For some reason, users naturally gravitated to group chat away from ESNs. So what happened? Why did the technology which changed the world forever in the consumer market turn out to be a royal dud in businesses?
It is the information design, stupid
I think the final answers to software success are not to be found in elaborate abstractions. It boils down to people going click-click-click on their shimmery screens. If you can help a user achieve their objective in the simplest, most pleasing way, you're on your way to success, baby. Even though I am not a fan of B.F. Skinner, this is a realm of pure behaviourism. Whether that click box is at the bottom right or top left, does make a darn difference. Two cases in point:
- In its snatching of the browser market from Microsoft, Google's key insight was blurring the boundaries between site urls and search. By turning the address bar into a search bar it won an entrenched market one saved click at a time
- Facebook's video consumption skyrocketed when it implemented video autoplay. We don't get the chance to decide whether they want to watch a video or not. It's playing already, we're watching already, and we're hooked
I think the clues for Team Chat's success at the cost of ESNs lie in such simple insights. I argue for the following:
