A blog by Oleg Shilovitsky
Information & Comments about Engineering and Manufacturing Software

Why Engineers Don’t Like Company Private Social Networks?

Why Engineers Don’t Like Company Private Social Networks?
Oleg
Oleg
22 July, 2012 | 2 min for reading

Couple of weeks ago, I discussed the potential of Yammer / Microsoft bundle to influence PLM field – Will Microsoft-Yammer kill Social PLM… Not yet. Actually, it seems to me Yammer indeed created some influence on what startups in PLM field are doing. Vuuch, last announcement introduces the ability to create company discussion groups.

In a nutshell, it looks exactly like Yammer idea. The employees of any company can register with their company emails and get an access to discussions inside of the same domain. Here is the link to a short video I found in the email from Vuuch:

Social PLM attempts

In my view, Vuuch is one of the leaders in trying to apply “social-networking” ideas in product development and enterprise. I can see similar attempts coming from large vendors too. The videos below show Dassault 3DSwYm and Windchill SocialLink experimenting with the idea of communities for product development.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cy74tKbp1Q

Can we ask engineers to behave in a social way?

When you speak about communities, the adoption is a key. Yammer claimed 5 million users and 85% of Fortune 500 companies are using Yammer. Here is the link on Yammer’s Crunch base profile :

With a Freemium model, Yammer enables employees to voluntarily adopt the service. A premium version is available to paying customers and includes additional administrative and security controls, integration with other applications, priority customer service, and a dedicated customer success manager. More than 5 million users, including employees from 85 percent of the Fortune 500, have adopted Yammer’s Software-as-a-Service solution.

I wasn’t able to find numbers related to user adoption of social PLM tools. Are you aware about successful implementation of private social communities in product development and manufacturing? I wanted to raise a provoking question – what is wrong with social PLM communities? Is it about not attractive content, user experience, absence of interest and/or need?

Recently, GrabCAD raised quite many splashes in the engineering space – 250,000 engineers, 45,000 CAD models and 3M downloads. However, GrabCAD is not in the business of private communities for product development. Taking into account their latest announcement, I have to say “not yet”. Another interesting example of community building is Local Motors – the place for people (engineers included) to create influencing vehicles together.

What is my conclusion? I think, PLM companies are missing some points in the space of social networking for enterprise. Here is my list of suspects – complicated user experience created by social PLM pioneers, anti-social engineering nature, engineer’s focus on “cool stuff” and ignorance of corporate oriented tools. These are just my guesses and thoughts… I’m interested in your opinion. Speak your mind…

Best, Oleg

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
6 April, 2017

In my earlier blog I demystified the notion of “monolithic” PLM marketing and shared some technological aspects related to PLM...

4 October, 2016

To maintain consistent Bill of Materials is one of the most complex data management processes between design and manufacturing. Siemens...

29 December, 2020

This time of the year is a great opportunity to reflect on multiple topics. My article last week – PLM...

5 March, 2015

To measure ROI is important part of PLM implementation decision. These days companies are less interested in 3-5 years implementation...

16 February, 2011

I want to talk about PLM and Standards today. In my view view, the story of standards is over complicated...

6 February, 2019

Engineering.com article A Solidworks user look at Onshape brought my PDM twisted mind again to what I call CAD version of Turgenev’s...

12 June, 2015

PI Congress is coming to Boston this year. The program just became available online and you can see it here....

7 May, 2015

Product cost is the top priority for every manufacturing organization in the world. It can be large OEM or small...

19 November, 2023

I’m bringing more notes and insight about Autodesk University 2023 I attended last week. If you missed my earlier articles,...

Blogroll

To the top