Connect is Just the Beginning

Paul and I have blogged about our newly (alpha) launched social network within Oracle, and we have settled on a name, Connect. Anne Truitt Zelenka, who also blogs for Web Worker Daily, wrote about our experiment in her personal blog, although Tim got most of the airtime for his comment turned post. It’s OK, he sent me an apology.

I spent last week in the Bay Area talking to people, evangelizing AppsLab and new web, and pressing the flesh, and it really feels like we’re scratching itches for people. They love the social network and the open forum for idea exchange. Most of all, they want to know where all this is going.

For me, this is the gravy; we’ve got a few thousand people interested enough to care about what happens next.

The key takeaway from my trip is that Paul and Rich have serious iPhone envy.

A close second is that Oracle people desperately want to be connected to each other. We are an increasingly distributed 60,000 plus, and one of the top feature requests we’ve had is to mandate pictures. Apparently, people want to know who they work with on a daily basis; we’re social animals. Who knew?

The idea of a social network as a productivity tool for “ad hoc problem-solving” as Anne mentions and for group work, providing trusted work areas for projects, as Dennis Howlett mentions, has legs from what I have seen in just over a week.

We have big plans for our experiment. Many companies that work with Oracle have large employee presences on social networks, e.g. did you know ABN AMRO has a Facebook network with 3,630 members? I purposely did not pick a tech company (like Cisco, with 5,795) to underline the point. Social networks are no longer a fad, and if you browse these work networks, you’ll find a mix of recent grads who probably carried over a Facebook account from college and newer members who have joined to get a feel for the social network.

I talked about a surprise demographic of users in my last post on Connect, i.e. people who will consume voraciously as long as they trust the network. My guess is this demographic exists everywhere, including ABN AMRO, which is an Oracle customer.

Imagine the power of creating a social extranet between Oracle and its customers, allowing for secure social interaction. Extend the model to include other customers using Oracle. Many of our customer groups like the Customer Advisory Boards bring customers together. What if they could stay in touch and collaborate through a secure social network provided by Oracle?

What about customers not on official boards, due to lack of sponsorship or lack of empty spots on a given council? Removing artificial scarcity from the customer participation “market” allows us to tap the long tail of customers. And yes, I know what the long tail is; I’m not just buzzword-dropping.

Opening this social channel for all our customers could help us understand what they want from our products in a much deeper way. This type of closeness to our customers can only help build the relationship. It’s all about the relationships that come out in a social network, uncovering hidden opportunities.

BTW, I’m a huge fan of the Plain English series of Common Craft videos. Check out the one on social networking.


As you apply this other affiliated groups like Oracle user groups, you begin to see how a social network can be applied to work. It’s not just a way to K.I.T. and broadcast your family vacation pictures.The point is people. People make software. People buy software. People use software.We think people should be the platform, connecting to each other, and this is why we chose the name Connect.

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This entry was written by Jake and posted on 12 August 2007 at 3:19 pm and filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

Viewing 6 Comments

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    Very cool! I'm writing a book, and here's what it's called:

    Connect!

    With the exclamation point and a long subtitle of course, since one-word book titles with long subtitles are in fashion right now.

    But connection is the thing, isn't it? iPhone or no. (In my case, no.)

    Didn't know that Common Craft had a video about social networking; I had seen the one about RSS and thought it was great.

    Will be interesting to see what you guys do with your Connect while I write mine. :)
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    Thanks for the link Jake. My personal view is that while Oracle does a great job hooking DBAs to DBAs it doesn't do a great job connecting to customers - people who use apps. In the SAP SDN/BPX networks, they're starting to discover people who can be articulate in that regard. It makes a HUGE difference to how apps development reflects business need. And that's from someone coming form the business/buy-side of the house.

    My sense is that if Oracle can make progress cracking that particular nut, then it will win friends.

    Good luck.
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    Thanks to both for commenting. I appreciate your attention to our humble blog. Rich is deploying features so fast that I'm having trouble keeping up with what's new. I hope he'll take a breath and share his experience with our technical audience.

    Anne: Sweet serendipity. I hope our Connect can inspire or at least prove the point in your Connect! Common Craft's videos are great teaching tools. They just published the social bookmarking one.

    Dennis: Your viewpoint is always welcome, and I can't really dispute it, this time. We are really trying to reach out to customers, and turning the ship has been tough. I think this year's Open World will show a lot of progress in that area.

    I have to say, I'm not sold on Twitter or Second Life as useful tools. Maybe you, Jeff and Craig et al. can educate me on these as business tools.

    Thanks,
    Jake
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    Hi Jake: I just posted something on it: at ZDNet where I explain my current position, based on recent experience. The technology has matured and folk like Craig are doing interesting things.

    I initially described Twitter as a 'f'ing waste of time' but once I discovered its utility in helping me reach people who are important to me in real time, the penny dropped very quickly. Today - it's part of my daily comms arsenal.

    On OpenWorld - unfortunately, Oracle doesn't seem so interested in reaching out to folks like me. ;(
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    Haven't tried Connect yet but can't wait to get on it - first thing Monday morning. And then blog about it.

    @Jake: This is really cool stuff.
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    Anshu: I sent you an invite this morning, looking forward to your thoughts.

    Dennis: Thanks for the publicity. As Tim said in an email, it's "time to step up". A few clarifications, Connect isn't product, nor will it be anytime soon, and we're not building a closed network. My goal is to allow for fine-grained network segmentation, like we (you too) have been asking Facebook to do.

    Jake
 

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