Why is Social PLM DOA?

For the past two years I have heard many technology vendors touting the benefits of social tools. No one can miss the astounding uptake of such solutions as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin and others. There have been many articles on the value that social tools can bring to your business. However, the uptake of social tools within Engineering organizations in the guise of social PLM has been very low; possibly non-existent.

Why is this the case? Is there no value in Engineering for social tools, or is it just hard to exploit these tools in the product development environment? There is clearly a need for more social collaboration during product design, so it would stand to reason that these social tools would have some value. As I have introduced many engineers to Social PLM in my PLM Certificate Education classes, I have often wondered about the lack of enthusiasm for these kinds of tools.

I think there are three main reasons for this lack of excitement for the potential value of Social PLM:

1) Age - Most of the people in my classes are not young. No offense, but most of you are pretty old, uh, I mean experienced. Very few are linked up with the tools teenagers user every day. Many of these experienced engineers look at Facebook and Twitter as huge time wasters with no real value. Some of my students are just now learning to text...what? Come on!

2) Email dependence - I am old enough to remember when some people called email a fad. Now we have become dependent on 100s of emails invading our in-box each day. When you tell most Engineers that there is something that might one day replace email, it's like telling them you are taking away their favorite slide rule (I remember those too); the push-back is predictable.

3) Separate software applications - All of the Social PLM tools I have seen are delivered as separate software applications that must be learned. An Engineer is not going to leave the CAD/CAM/PDM/email environment to learn and use another application, unless required.

So, what is the answer? In my opinion, until we have social tools embedded into the native PDM applications that Engineers are using today to do their work, social PLM uptake will be slow. Look at some of what is available today: SocialLink from PTC, 3DSWYM from Dassault, Teamcenter Community from SiemensPLM, and a host of point solutions: Yammer, Jive, Vuuch, etc... Many of these social solutions are based on MS Sharepoint, and they bring the inherent limitations of that tool. All of these software solutions also require the engineer to learn some type of new tool. I just don't see that happening very quickly.

I hope to see social features moved from standalone software solutions into the PDM environment, where they are easy to use, and readily available. Then, I think you will see Engineers and others start to use them, and they will begin to see the value of social PLM tools for product design.

What do you think?

Cheers,

Jim

Is PLM Just a Bunch of Old Guys?

The recent CIMdata PLM Roadmap saw great attendance, and great speakers. One of the topics brought up by several speakers was the lack of young people at this conference. I don't think this is any different from most PLM conferences around the world. If you look at who attends these conferences, it is mostly 40+ years old guys. I can speak from experience, since I am one of those old guys.

Many of the new technologies that will impact PLM in the future, like mobility, cloud, social, and others have NOT been embraced by the "old" guys at these conferences. When asked for a show of hands of how many people would be tweeting at the conference, about 6 people raised their hands. Overall, there were only 18 people that tweeted at the conference; there were 300+ attendees!

The question I have to ask is: "how can we get more young people involved in PLM?" If you looked at most PLM conferences, you would get the idea that only old guys are interested in this technology. This is far from the truth, especially when you consider how much technology is used by younger people today. But, how can we get their inputs into what we are doing with PLM?

I don't know that answer, but I think it is VERY important that we figure out how to engage with our younger engineers and PLM technology users to help us understand how new technologies can provide the PLM environment of the future.

What do you think?

Jim

How Will Social Media Technology Impact PLM?

I just read an article (Read it here, if you like) that highlights the amazingly fast rise of Pinterest as a social media site. I also found some interesting statistics about people's experiences with social media:

• 91% of today’s online adults use social media regularly
• 300,000+ businesses have a presence on Facebook
• 28% of smartphone owners watch video on their phone in a typical month
• It has been found:
• $15,000 in direct mail = 200 new customers
• $7500 in billboard ads = 300 new customers
• $0 spent on Twitter = 1,800 new customers
• Only 18% of traditional TV ads generate a positive ROI

Facebook, Youtube, and eBay were the three top brand searches in 2011. The most popular social networks are Facebook, Twitter, and moving into third place, Pinterest; pushing Linkedin to number four.

Facebook is #1 today: 1 in 4 page views are on Facebook. Second is Youtube for video content, and finally Google is third. What this means is that if you don't have a presence on Facebook, or Youtube, then you are missing many of the eyeballs that you need to make money.

If you have a blog, or a traditional web presence, then you need to make sure people can link between your various social personas easily and quickly; many companies do not understand this yet. Mobility is also a strong trend, as more and more people log into the internet from smart-phones, iPads, Kindles, and other mobile devices. If your web site looks like a steaming pile of moose poo-poo on a mobile device, then you will not get the kind of traction you are hoping for from your web site.

Companies are not only working on their traditional web presence, but some of the heavy-weights are getting into the social media space big-time. SAP just bought Ariba for $4.3 billion to support the cloud and mobility, Salesforce.com bought Buddy Media for $690 million, and Oracle just bought Vitrue for $300 million and then they bought Collective Intellect, all to support social clouds, mobility, and social analytics.

All of these new technologies will have a big impact on PLM. The way your users collaborate will change dramatically in the next 5 years: We will go from a predominantly email collaboration model to a cloud-based social platform model; We will see a much stronger push for mobile access to all information; We will see the emergence of Social PLM. These changes will help you, or your competitors, to be more efficient and productive; which, is up to you.

What changes do you see coming in your business?

Cheers

-Jim

Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Website!

I was touring some local model homes with my wife recently. We are not in the market for a new home, but this is one of my wife's "hobbies". She just loves to go look at new model homes. I guess I can see why: they are clean and welcoming, they smell nice, and the people there always make you feel wanted.

The other day I was searching around the internet (like I do almost every day), and I realized that I don't look for websites as much as I use to. In the old days, I was always looking for the best website to tell me about a product, or gain information, or find a cool link. Today, I have noticed that I tend to follow links from my social media "friends" that send me to blogs, to Facebook, to Tweets, to Linkedin, and eventually, maybe, to a traditional website.

Most of the time, when I visit a corporate web site, I can't find a link to their Faceboook, Twitter, blogs, YouTube, or other social accounts, this leaves me frustrated (I get frustrated a lot). At the very least, a corporate web page should provide a solid jumping off point for the rest of their social presence. This led me to wonder just how important web sites, search engine optimization (SEO), and site optimization in general is to the overall brand messages and information that we seek on the internet.

I recently read an article titled: "Why 'The Atlantic' No Longer Cares About SEO". One of the things they are doing is not worrying about writing articles for Google search algorithms, but writing articles that real people want to read, share, rewteet, repost, etc. They are, "capitalizing on the growing importance of social networks, rather than search engines, as sources of traffic." I think this is a growing trend, and one that I see more and more every day.

What does this mean? Well, for one thing, the first place people look for information about you or your brand is not necessarily on your web page. They likely look at blogs, tweets, videos, and other sources as well. By the time they get to your website, most people have already formed an opinion about you; sometimes they NEVER get to your web site at all! Your competition is becoming more social as we speak, can you afford to do nothing?

Just like walking into someone's home, people must find a very social and friendly atmosphere on your web site. If you have an old-school site with static pages and very little social content, you will likely miss out on many potential customers. These potential "friends" will get up, spill their drink, and take their social presence elsewhere; and no one wants that.

What do you think? Is your website inviting people inside, or pushing them away?

-Jim