What I Learned: Why Social Networking in PLM is More than Just Collaboration
What I learned this week … came as
the resu
lt of a
conversation I had recently with some of the people I know who
are passionate about the use of social computing to improve product
development. The examples that we kept discussing were good, but to
me I kept hearing about better collaboration. Important, but from
my use of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. I kept feeling like
there was more to it that I wasn’t able to articulate. In one of
those “aha” moments (aided by one of my favorite innovation tools,
the white board) I finally got it. I would like to share that with
you if I can.
Why Social Networking Complements Traditional
Collaboration
After trying to crystallize my thoughts on this for a few months
now, I think I have come to the essence of why social networking
adds significantly to current the current capabilities of PLM:
-
Collaboration - Working and sharing ideas with
people you already know -
Social Networking in PLM -
discovering new people and ideas that can
further your product innovation and engineering efforts
In short, the difference is about discovery.
PLM today offers great ways to share product data and 3D visual
product representations with others. Redlining, mockups,
visualization, and other collaborative techniques help companies
develop better products (and develop them faster). This is an
important aspect of PLM, because it empowers cross-functional teams
to work on the same information and share ideas. Given today’s
global, dispersed product teams this is a necessity. Taking to the
next level, it helps manufacturers work more closely with suppliers
and customers, allowing them to develop different aspects of a
product in parallel but still stay in sync. Many
manufacturers are already collaborating effectively internally and
externally with some great results including better
products that are being brought to the market much faster than
before.
So Why Social Networking? Why Discovery?
The
“aha” for me was looking back on my time at Andersen Consulting
(now Accenture) and our use
of Lotus Notes. When we wanted to find out where the expertise was
in our vast (even then) network of information and people, you
could search a database and find relevant projects and
information. It was not perfect, but it helped you uncover
important information. But, that wasn’t the value. The
value was finding the people associated with the projects and
clients, and then tapping into them. It gave us the
ability to:
- Find relevant projects or information
-
Review the information (if authorized) and
learn from their documented
experience - Find out who was involved
But of course what was documented was far less than what
the person really knew. Now, extend that capability with
an ability to:
- Communicate with that person
-
Tap into that person’s extended network
to discover even more ideas and people
Now we are talking about significantly greater business
value because social networking drives discovery. This
discovery includes leveraging what some call “weak links,” which
are people that are in your extended network that you don’t know
well enough to know what they know (grossly paraphrased and
interpreted compared to the original, with apologies). And
then after we discover new ideas and the people that have
them … drum roll please … we start collaborating. And
social computing capabilities alongside “traditional” collaboration
step in to make that work even better. Brilliant!
Perhaps I am just slower on the uptake than the rest of our
community and this has been obvious to others for a while. But to
me, I don’t like to bite on using technology for the sake of
technology, and this is the first time it is crystal clear in
my mind why social networking in PLM is:
- More than just collaboration
- Makes collaboration better
- A significant, complementary addition to the PLM
toolset - An important evolution in PLM (processes and
tools) - Here to stay
Implications for Manufacturers?
I believe this is a significant evolution for PLM.
It does not replace the core PLM capabilities that companies need,
including product data management (PDM), project and portfolio
management, business process automation, or countless others. It
doesn’t even replace collaboration. What it does is draw
more innovative ideas and people into your product innovation,
product development, and engineering processes. And then,
yes, social computing capabilities like chat, presence detection,
threaded discussion, unified communication (and more) can help
better enable companies to collaborate. But to me, the real
opportunity is that it can do more - it can help a
manufacturer find out who they should be collaborating with in the
first place!
So that is what I learned this week, I hope you found it
interesting and share my excitement for this new development. Let
me know what you think.
Jim Brown, Tech-Clarity commented:
Jerry and Kenneth, You both offer excellent views. This is all
about increasing dialogue, isn't it? Dialogue with potential
customers, suppliers, partners, and of internal people. I am truly
excited about the potential here, and as Kenneth points out this
strips away a lot of the corporate antibodies that typically kill
good ideas by shielding people from outside ideas through
bureaucracy. Very exciting stuff indeed!
Jim Brown, Tech-Clarity commented:
Jerry and Kenneth, You both offer excellent views. This is all
about increasing dialogue, isn't it? Dialogue with potential
customers, suppliers, partners, and of internal people. I am truly
excited about the potential here, and as Kenneth points out this
strips away a lot of the corporate antibodies that typically kill
good ideas by shielding people from outside ideas through
bureaucracy. Very exciting stuff indeed!
Kennethwongsf commented:
Another strength of social computing is how it bypasses the
customary hierarchical structure. Typically, you submit your idea
to your team leader, he/she submits it to his/her boss, this boss
forwards it to the CEO, and so on. In the type of collaboration
facilitated by social networks, everyone can see everyone else's
ideas. So the CEO could be directly collaborating with the mail
room clerk. In the hierarchical structure, you don't want to be the
one who submits what seems like a stupid idea (remember, your boss
is the one who receives it). But sometimes stupid ideas lead to
brilliant discoveries. In the social networking model, all ideas
receive equal consideration. Now that's a brilliant idea, in my
view.
Jerry Saveriano commented:
Good piece Jim. I think one of the principle benefits of the use of
social networks and media for B2B applications is that it
encourages long term ongoing conversations between manufacturers,
customers and partners. Social networks can provide synchronous and
asynchronous online continuous communication and colaboration about
product and process improvements. These conversations can be
private or public, one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many using
social media's rich multimedia toolkit. A toolkit that is
easy-to-use, for even those not familiar with social media. Plus
these powerful tools and platforms are either free or affordable
and open to anyone with a browser. We are only now beginning to
realize the benefits that a secure, robust and globally distributed
Web 2.0 network can accomplish. It will accelerate and enhance
product and process design, simulation and even real-time
monitoring. Imagine the results possible when the power currently
being enjoyed by today's teenagers using low cost Xbox and
PlayStation computers and online networks in a few years when they
move into engineering and management positions. What will they be
able to do with those tools and expertise?
Oleg Shilovitsky commented:
Jim, I think this good observation. Just want to add that in my
view key difference is social dimension in collaboration. The most
important is that social tools provide information about people
(involved into collaboration) and their relations to content /data
you are going to collaborate on. www.plmtwine.com
Mark Burhop commented:
I love this post and think you really hit the nail on the head. Its
not just discovery but rediscovery. If collaboration is "distance"
than Social Media is "velocity" (distance with a time factor).
Social media allows you to stay current in a dynamic environment of
new products, new technologies and changing people. With a good
social computing backbone collaboration can take place at any point
in time.
