Managing Automation - February 2009 - (Page 28) DEEPDIVE collaboration SmartTurn CEO Jim Burleigh: “The average junior high student uses so much more collaborative technology than most advanced businesses.” ma egy that has upper management’s backing. Another 24% said it is actually an informal initiative without clear goals and objectives, and 22% said it is a strategy that individual departments are pursing to create cross-functional teams. Indeed, much of the discussion about collaboration is popping up because of the Gen Yers populating the workplace. “The average junior high student uses so much more col- “What people post [on public servers like Facelaborative technology than book’s] is not under the control of the employer, most advanced businesswhich is scary.” — David Lavenda at WorkLight. es,” says Jim Burleigh, CEO of SmartTurn, a Web-based demand tion to create “one version of the truth” could warehouse management system. be an important tool for corporations to conBut the average junior high school stusider as they look for ways to manage the indent doesn’t have to worry about Sarbanesflux of new information that Web 2.0 techOxley, SEC regulations, or complying with nology will move into — and out of — the the FDA’s Good Manufacturing Practices. organization. With those restrictions in the back of their The rules that SPSS and Siperian put in minds, CEOs would have to wonder how all place, however, pertain to formatting data of the unstructured data floating around in and don’t address manufacturers’ real consocial networks, blogs, and wikis can be cern: maintaining the organization’s credimanaged, secured, and tracked. bility in a Web 2.0 world. Companies need a way to capture, anaIt is a valid concern when employees are lyze, and mine free-flowing information. using a consumer-grade tool, such as FaceSPSS, for example, has created a platform for book, which is stored on public ser vers. analyzing both structured and unstructured “What people post is not under the control of information. For example, a manufacturer the employer, which is scary,” says David that wants to connect with customers to find Lavenda, vice president of marketing and out how they feel about a particular product product strategy at WorkLight, which makes or brand can start a blog and invite coman on-premise server-based system that can ments. Those comments, however, are in tap into enterprise applications such as ERP, text format. SPSS’ text analysis technology CRM, and SFA, and integrate them with any can take any text from a blog or survey, for type of Web 2.0 technology — for example, example, and turn it into a structured format gadgets, widgets, and social networking sites. for analysis. WorkLight and other vendors factor security into their applications with user authentication techniques. But they recognize that many companies hesitate to put their business on the Web for fear of jeopardizing their intellectual property. So, last year WorkLight established the Secure Enterprise 2.0 forum, an organization that gathers CIOs and CSOs together to raise awareness of both the collaborative value and risks of Web 2.0 technology. The right approach to managing those risks, industry observers say, includes establishing and enforcing corporate policies and privacy rules for using wikis, blogs, and social networking sites, because those things are not going away. “Many companies block these types of tools so people can’t use them at work, but it’s like the little boy with his finger in the Siperian, on the other hand, uses MDM technology to help manufactures make sense of inconsistent information. “Data governance is about making sure the data is managed and available to the consuming user in a clean manner and a secure way,” says Ravi Shankar, Siperian’s senior director of product marketing. That requires establishing rules about the data, he says. MDM does not yet play a major role in managing social networks. But its ability to sift through massive amounts of informa- February 28 2009 Photo courtesy: SmartTurn
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.