Portland-based Jive Software has been a bit quiet as of late. Which is always a good sign that folks are up to something.
Part of that “something” was clearly their move to a new office space. And this morning, we discovered another part of that something in the form of a new offering, Clearstep:
Clearstep is the first of its kind online community, powered by Jive’s own Clearspace product, for social and enterprise 2.0 practitioners. Now these professionals have a place to interact, share best practices, and gain access to a much wider range of perspectives on common community and collaboration issues. Clearstep is intended for all social and enterprise 2.0-focused professionals, including Jive customers.
Gia Lyons, Jive’s Director of Social Enterprise Evangelism… Um. I’m sorry. Where was I? Oh yes, Gia Lyons describes Clearstep as the “best business hook-up hotspot”:
Ever wish you could find someone working on social media or Enterprise 2.0 efforts at other companies, same as you? Wish you could pick their brain about how the heck they justified the implementation cost? Found that elusive ROI? Tricks to get employees to use it? Best way to communicate your new online community to your brand fanbase?
The fringe benefits for Jive hosting the site are immediately evident. Not only do they get a bunch of leading social media specialists talking it up about enterprise adoption of social media in Jive’s backyard, they also get those experts having that conversation while using Jive’s product.
Which, aesthetically, I might add—thanks to the work of Michael Sigler and his design team (specifically Chris Kalani)—is one of the most beautiful corporate Web apps around.
It’s an interesting experiment, to be sure. But the question for me remains: Do people involved in social media experts—especially those within the enterprise—like talking to one another as much as they like talking to non-expert social media types? That remains to be seen.
[Update] Gia Lyons was kind enough to stop by and clarify this point. The community is actually for everyone—not “experts” as I had incorrectly concluded. So this truly becomes a social network focused on social media, open to anyone who is interested in participating. Obviously, the community was seeded with experts because, well, I mean who else would you seed it with?
Interested in participating in the Clearstep community?
If you are someone interested in social media expert pursing that ever elusive “Enterprise 2.0” and Clearstep has sparked your interest, why not consider joining the community and giving it a test drive? Clearstep registration is currently open. Jive has done a great job of seeding the community, pre-launch, so that there is plenty of existing content in which you can root around.
For more information, see the Jive press release announcing Clearstep, Jive’s numbers, and recent hires.
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Thanks man. I actually totally leaked the design a couple months ago on my site: http://chriskalani.com/archive/clearstep-enterprise-20-community/
Nevermind. I answered my own question. 😉
@Gia Interesting point on the “experts.” I saw this as a community of folks deeply involved in this sort of social activity within their respective enterprises—and I might have mislabeled them as experts in this regard—who would have a social circle of like-minded folks in Clearstep.
Sorry for that misinterpretation. I’ll make an edit to the post to clarify that point.
If it’s open to anyone, I guess that begs the question of why this just wouldn’t happen out in the open on an existing social network?
I don’t need an answer to that. It just popped into my head.
Thanks for the props, Rick! I know. My title is ultra-long. If you’re still interested after reading it, then I’m all yours.
Also, I hate “experts”. This community is open for everyone, not just experts.
(Bumps into the elephant in the room) Maybe like say, oh I don’t know… OpenID?
Thanks for the props Rick. Kalani, Barry and Gia and the rest of the people at Jive have done a great job getting it off the ground.
Aaron – This is one of very few instances in which we don’t use our single sign-on model for a community. It was a hard choice for us but something we needed to do. I encourage you to hop into the community and comment on it. I agree that many companies struggle with just that sort of thing.
Out of anyone who does SSO well, I’d say Blizzard does the best job with WoW. Same account for their forums, managing your account and the game.
Just tried to register and the captcha appeared to have a / in it. Apparently it didnt and the form RESET THE ENTIRE THING. Nice try, lemme know when it’s fixed and I may try again.
Looks promising… if nothing else it’s a good way to get some hands-on experience with Clearspace.
I’m not at all excited about creating yet another username and password. I wish companies would make it easier to participate without answering a bunch of questions and setting up yet another account…