Seven Takeaways from Cloudforce

The user-interface model for the future of enterprise software looks an awful lot like Facebook. The post Seven Takeaways from Cloudforce appeared first on VMR. Seven Takeaways from Cloudforce was first posted on March 4, 2011 at 8:18 am.©2015 "VMR". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at hugh@vmrcommunications.com

1. Facebook is the User Interface Model of Choice

The user-interface model for the future of enterprise software looks an awful lot like Facebook. At least according to Marc Benioff who I think is rightly passionate about his belief that so-called “Cloud 2” platform architecture similar to that of Facebook is best suited to bridging the gap between what Salesforce Chief Scientist JP Rangaswami refers to as “systems of record” and “systems of engagement.”

2. Native Social Media Integration Has Improved But Has a Long Way to Go

The Salesforce team clearly understands the importance of bringing relevant conversations occurring in the social web into the Salesforce user interface and fully integrating those “systems of engagement” with the Salesforce systems of engagement such as Chatter. But I’m not sure they fully appreciate the massive scope, scale and strategic business importance of platforms other than the Big Two – Facebook and Twitter. The major problem, in my view is that presently Salesforce offers only very limited native integration with only the Big Two and none of the many thousands of social sites consumers are using today.

Image Credit:   The Conversation Prism , by Brian Solis and Jess3

When I asked Benioff if he thought it would make sense for Salesforce to acquire a social media monitoring firm such as Radian6, he replied that the company is always looking at acquisition possibilities and he hinted that the popularity of the Radian6 app which will soon be unveiled in the Salesforce App Exchange will be a significant factor in determining whether any such acquisition might have merit.

3. Ensuring Maximum User Adoption within Salesforce is the Best Way to Move the Needle on Customer User Adoption

Salesforce is one of the very few technology companies with a Chief Adoption Officer, namely Polly Sumner who spoke briefly during the analyst luncheon. So I was surprised to note – in light of the priority the company seems to be placing on UA, and in light of Benioff’s entreaties for attendees to ask Salesforce employees how they were using Chatter – that one Salesforce employee I spoke with was using email to communicate with a colleague who was also at #Cloudforce.  Salesforce would do well to tweak the product or roll-out processes to ensure more broad-based Chatter adoption within its own ranks and then blog about such adoption experiences as extensively as possible.

4. Marc Benioff Is a Dynamic Leader and is Not Afraid to Link the Salesforce Brand Strongly to His Persona

He’s a superb leader with a natural ability to inspire the best from those around him. Benioff’s style of leadership appears to me to be quite similar to his approach to software development: It is highly collaborative, decentralized and against the grain. For example, I was quite impressed, during the analyst lunch I had the privilege to attend, to note his ability to ask various members of his executive team to answer questions posed by those in attendance. Like his mentor Steve Jobs at Apple, Benioff has a warm and engaging personality that lends itself to brand dependence – and perhaps over-reliance – on his persona. It would be wise for Benioff to begin sharing the limelight more strategically with potential successors. Seesmic.com and LeWeb founder Loic Le Meur does not have the same level of executive experience but Benioff may wish to bring Lemuir on the Salesforce executive team to ensure Salesforce has more than one “face of the franchise.”

5. Integrated Philanthropy Is Central to the Salesforce Business Vision and Could be a Strategic Differentiator

Contrary to the opinion of esteemed economist Milton Friedman, the “business of business” is not only business according to Benioff. Integrated philanthropic initiatives, centered around causes benefitting children, have become a hallmark of the Salesforce brand. Benioff’s participation in America’s Promise, a program spearheaded in part by Benioff’s mentor Colin Powell in 1997, appears to have had a lasting impact on not only the Salesforce co-founder’s philanthropic vision but his business vision as well. As Benioff states in his latest book, “Behind the Cloud,” co-written by Carlye Adler:

As I mentioned to Salesforce’s Gordon Evans, I see Chatter as having the potential to be used as a cross-enterprise, real-time collaboration platform to solve global challenges. Salesforce will need to find creative ways to provide for such collaboration without threatening its reputation as a highly secure repository of business data.

6. Native Integration of More Social Media Systems of Engagement is Imperative

Natively integrating password and non-password protected external systems of engagement such as YouTube.com, Linkedin.com, Quora.com, GetSatisfaction.com, the blogosphere and other social outposts which will continually emerge may not be in high demand presently but as enterprises and SMBs become more aware of the vast scope of social media and understand use case scenarios and ROI opportunities, I suspect Benioff will realize that it may make sense to ensure more native, easy to use integrations with such sites. And that may necessitate a strategic acquisition of a social media monitoring platform such as Radian6 that has a slick workflow dashboard or perhaps – more appropriately – a data mining – focused platform such as DataSift where the Salesforce user interface would compensate for the lack of a sophisticated workflow dashboard.

Salesforce appears to be waiting for demand to emerge but in a highly complex industry where customers need an educational partner just as much as a solutions partner, this may not be the wisest approach. Salesforce – or one of its competitors – may decide to pro-actively educate customers on why such integration is critical to ensuring all systems of engagement are integrated with systems of record and accessible in a user interface that accommodates the differing executional needs of business groups (eg, Customer Service, Sales, PR, Product Development, Legal, HR, etc…).

7.  The Future for Salesforce and Its Customers Looks Extremely Bright

Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, Linda Crawford, Peter Coffee, Gordan Evans, and others could not have been more gracious and open to chatting with me during #Cloudforce. And that culture of transparency and openness is what impressed me the most. It was quite literally something I could touch, feel, see and hear today at #Cloudforce. The future looks extremely bright and I feel privileged to be a part of this very exciting moment in the social technology industry’s history.

Did you attend #Cloudforce? What were your take-aways? If you did not attend, what more would you like to know about Salesforce and the future of socially-integrated enterprise software?

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Correction : The original version of this post referred to Cloud 3. Although “Service Cloud 3” was announced during Cloudforce, when Salesforce executive Marc Benioff refers to the “Facebook Imperative,” it is what he calls the next phase of computing, or Cloud 2, not Cloud 3. Special thanks to Carlye Adler for clarifying this. – Hugh Macken, March 14, 2011

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Seven Takeaways from Cloudforce

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