Makin' the doughnuts.
Posts: 10
| Created on July 16, 2008
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I have some very exciting news to share: Leverage Software has been acquired by Telligent!
Here's what this means for our customers:
As we become part of Telligent through this acquisition, our commitment to our customers will not change: we're going to continue to support you just as we always have. However, we'll now have a much deeper set of resources behind us, which means that we'll be able to innovate like never before. In addition, each Leverage customer will also be able to tap into Telligent's rich network of resources, which includes its customer community of social leaders, expansive service offerings, and an ecosystem of partners, developers and system integrators.
What's particularly exciting is that, as leading social software vendors, the fit between the two companies is such a natural one. Both companies are early pioneers in the social software space, have a long history of supporting the social innovators, are change-makers at great organizations around the world, and are made up of an amazingly talented group of employees who live and breathe enterprise social software.
Among the things I have been most proud of at Leverage Software are the great individuals who make up the company. Over the years I've been fortunate to be able to work with the most creative, passionate and hard-working individuals in the industry — and I can already tell that Telligent is also made up of people with those same amazing qualities. As every Leverage employee transitions to joining the Telligent team, I am excited to see what innovations these two groups will create together, and I especially can't wait to share those innovations with our customers.
Thanks to everyone who has supported us over the years, and keep an eye on us as we move forward. This is definitely going to be the enterprise social software company to watch!
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 There's an old adage which reads "there are only two industries which refer to their customers as users." While we'll leave one of those industries to its own devices, we try our best not to contribute to the use of the word "user" in our own industry.
When we're working together in the office on, say, a new feature -- even if it's in the absolute earliest stages, a thread of a thread of a thread of an idea -- we really will try to force ourselves to use any word but "user." Members, customers, employees, managers -- all of these are okay. But users? No way.
Is this ridiculous? Yes, probably. Do I think it's important anyway? Yes, I really do.
We make SOCIAL software, and SOCIAL software is all about PEOPLE, not USERS. And PEOPLE are amazing. PEOPLE can do anything. PEOPLE create. PEOPLE share. PEOPLE talk, dance, think, flirt, love, sing, worry, fight. PEOPLE discover cures, write books, land on the moon, and spill coffee on their laps. PEOPLE join online communities in order to provide feedback, share ideas, and meet and talk with other PEOPLE.
Some PEOPLE -- particularly SMART PEOPLE, in my opinion -- decide to create online communities for other PEOPLE. Sometimes those PEOPLE become our CUSTOMERS. And those PEOPLE? Well, we just love those PEOPLE.
But USERS? I'm not sure what users do. But that's okay, because we're not really building tools for users.
Does this use of words really matter? I have been in software development for a number of years, and I really think it does. Because software development is about the day-to-day -- it's about the hundreds upon hundreds of discussions that lead up to a new feature. And if everyone on the team uses a set of words -- well, somehow, somewhere, those words will seep into what you're building.
Here's a completely simple example. When we first added a wiki to our platform, we created a page which lists all the wikis within a community. And, initially, that page contained the title of the wiki and the date it was last updated. And that page was FINE. It was DONE. Nobody needed to do anything more with that page. Ship the software and head home for the weekend, right?
But. Well, hmmmmm. That page. You know that page? Yeah, that one. Something's missing. That page, it needs something, doesn't it? Just...something. And everyone thought...yeah. What's wrong with this perfectly reasonable page? Any USER could see what to do with that page. USERS should be able to figure out that they should click a LINK. But we had been using the word PEOPLE for so long...well, we decided to ALSO add the photographs of the ten people who had most recently updated that wiki. Because while USERS might be happy to just click a link, for some reason as PEOPLE we thought it might be interesting to show WHO was actively creating this wiki. 
Does this feature provide significant value? To be honest, I'm not sure. Shoot, maybe those photos just get in the way of some of our community members.
But that's okay. It's just the way we think. When we created a visual community tool, it became the PEOPLE map. When we built a set of RSS widgets, they included photographs of the PEOPLE who created the information those widgets displayed. And I'm pretty sure that the next features we add to our platform will more than likely have some aspect of PEOPLE interwoven through them, somehow.
We just like thinking and talking about how PEOPLE use our system, and what kind of online community real PEOPLE would enjoy using the most. And I think, little by little, those words will seep into our product, and hopefully make it a lot more valuable to our customers.
Sorry, users. We just think people are way more interesting.
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 About a month ago I joined an online community called Kiva, an amazing non-profit which connects people like myself to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Individuals can then make small loans to those entrepreneurs -- a process known as microcredit.
I first heard about microcredit two years ago when I heard a talk given by Eric Brewer, founder of Inktomi and a UC Berkeley professor. Eric described his experiences in seeing firsthand how microcredit can help address poverty in areas such as India and Bangladesh by giving people in those areas the backing to create a better life for themselves. I was impressed and inspired.
So when I later learned that the Kiva folks were attempting to build an online community based upon the principles of microcredit, I was really curious. Of course I loved the idea of a global online community which would be used to combat poverty -- but would it really work? Was it really possible to connect people from as seemingly different walks of life as a technology consultant in Manhattan with a small farmer in Cambodia?
It turns out the answer is: yes. Kiva appears to be working great -- it's active and, overall, people on the site seem very involved. (Here's my own Kiva page.)
And as I got more into the site, I realized why. The folks at Kiva simply did what the founders of so many great online communities do: they established a clear and consistent purpose, they spent the time to cultivate their community to make sure that people are able to share real content and real stories, and they focus their ongoing energies on helping people build connections and establish relationships with one another.
Kiva is a community focused on business owners, pure and simple. And it's very impressive.
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1. Knowledge is messy.
2. Knowledge is self-organizing.
3. Knowledge seeks community.
4. Knowledge travels on language.
5. Knowledge is slippery.
6. Looser is probably better.
7. Knowledge keeps changing.
8. Knowledge does not grow forever -- something eventually dies or is lost.
9. No one is really in charge.
10. You cannot impose rules and systems.
11. There is no silver bullet.
12. How you define the knowledge problem determines what and how you try to manage.
I recently stumbled across the above excerpt from a book by Verna Allee entitled The Knowledge Evolution: Expanding Organizational Intelligence. The book was published in 1997, and yet twelve years later, these ideas seem as valuable as ever.
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The Leverage Community Platform has always been delivered through a 100% software-as-a-service (SaaS) on-demand model. Today, with the explosive growth of applications like Salesforce.com, Google Apps, and Facebook, justifying that approach to our customers, partners, and friends usually isn't too difficult. Most people we encounter appreciate SaaS for its ability to deliver rapid deployments and frequent updates, and to help offload work from typically very stretched IT groups. There are a lot of great reasons why Gartner predicts that SaaS adoption in enterprises will grow at such a rapid rate.
However, this most definitely was not always the case. When we were first starting out, some prospective customers would tell us they really liked our software, but they would only buy it if we offered an installed version. They weren't ready for SaaS quite yet, but we really believed it was the best model for our customers and so we focused on it entirely. This led to a number of friendly exchanges between yours truly and our sales team that went something like this:
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Salesperson: "Joe, good meeting today at CorpX. I can sell our platform tomorrow, no problem! But it has to be installed. Cool?
Me: So, that's not really our model, remember? Because then they'll need to buy machines, database servers, app servers, the works. Complicated, expensive...
Salesperson: Nice! Sounds like I can sell them $4.2 trillion dollars worth of stuff, that's good. So, anyway, on the way home from my meeting I stopped by the Ferrari dealer, and they definitely do have the red one that I really like, so I think we're good there. Anyway, so when are we going to create an installed version?"
Me: "Well, we're really focused on on-demand, so...will never work for you? How about never?"
Salesperson: "How about I let the air out of your tires tonight?"
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As you can see, we're a very tight team. Also, I usually take the train.
So, I know what you're thinking. In this age of giant financial bailouts, what's $4.2 trillion dollars? But back then, when we were just starting out, and credit swaps were but a glimmer in some Armani-suit-wearing banking CEO's eye, that was still a lot of money. So for us to say "no" to creating installed software forced us internally to really ask ourselves: "why are we so committed to this on-demand model?"
As someone who cut his teeth over the years developing installed applications, I thought that answer was easy and obvious. From a product development and engineering perspective, SaaS is a tall drink of water. No more installation problems! No more versioning problems! No more sitting on the phone with someone trying to figure out which version of which database running on which operating system isn't compatible with which version of which driver! Putting all those issues to bed sounded great to me. Good for us, good for our customers.
But, the truth is, if you are really committed to creating enterprise-grade software, then there are always development and engineering issues to solve, regardless of the model. And while SaaS certainly makes some issues easier to deal with, it presents its own set of challenges to engineering teams. And, more importantly, just because we liked it from an engineering perspective wasn't really enough of a reason to decide how best to serve our customers. Technology should adapt to customer needs, not the other way around.
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 | And yet I still just loved the on-demand model.
And, over time, the more I realized why. It wasn't the CTO in me that loved on-demand, it was the startup co-founder who did. Because when we buy software and systems at Leverage Software that we need to use to do our jobs, if they're on-demand then it means that we get to focus on our business, not on some system.
For example, if we use an on-demand CRM system, rather than occasionally having to figure out why such-and-such account record didn't update properly, I get to use that time to think about a cool new feature we want to develop. And if we use an on-demand analytics package, rather than spending ten hours with someone setting up some server somewhere, those are ten more hours I get to spend with a new customer understanding what they are trying to do with their community. And so on. On-demand software and services gives us the ability to spend our time where we want to spend it: on our customers, our employees, and our partners.
And that is exactly what we talk about, every day, when we discuss our own platform: how can we help our customers focus on their own customers, their own employees, their own partners? How can we help give them their time back so they can think about their people, and not have to worry about one more system? On-demand isn't a technology issue for us, it's a business decision that goes to our core. We want to help our customers succeed wherever we can by allowing them to focus on their people, not their technology.
I have been in software way too long to believe that SaaS is some sort of silver bullet. Nothing is. Saas has its own limitations, its own challenges. Is it (or are we) perfect? No way. Is it for everyone? Absolutely not -- there are definitely times in which installed software can make sense (especially if you have a large engineering team at your fingertips and they have some time on their hands, open source in particular can be a great option.)
But, for us, and what we are trying to do for our customers, SaaS is definitely the right model. And I have been thrilled to see that so many companies have adopted it.
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I am very happy to announce the lastest upgrade to our online community platform, Version 6.6! This version contains a number of new goodies, such as:
- Improved Identity Management. Community members now have much greater flexiblity in selecting their member names, and they may change or update their member names as needed. In addition, community administrators have more control over how their members sign in to their community.
- Look-and-Feel and Customization Improvements. The user interface has been upgraded in a number of areas, and this has been done in such a way to make it easier for designers to create custom "skins."
- Email Notification Enhancements. New email notifications have been added, and community administrators may now more easily view which items are most heavily subscribed.
As is so often the case, many of the features in this release were suggested to us by our existing customers, and to each of you, we'd like to say thank you! Your insight and creativity are always appreciated as we continue to focus on trying to provide you with the best online community software on the planet.
If you're interested in digging into the deets, feel free to check out the complete release notes which are always available.
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 I am very excited to talk about the newest update to the Leverage Community Platform, Version 6.5. This version is one of those fun ones in which we don't add in a completely brand-new feature, we just make try to make as many things as we can better.
A good number of these changes started as customer suggestions, and to those folks who shared their feedback, thank you. Our intention is always to continually improve the platform with every release we build, and your feedback is incredibly helpful in that process.
Here's what our talented developers and designers have been working on for Version 6.5:
- We made the Geo-Social Map better -- it's easier to use, it's faster, it shows an unlimited number of people. Plus, we added some new "power user" geo-social search capabilities so that members can now search on both profiles and interests.
- We made the Calendar better -- by providing a way for community administrators to more easily schedule events throughout their community so that they pop up on their members' calendars.
- We made the Groups better -- by improving the email notification system so that members get notified when files and new meetings are posted within groups.
- We made the Customization capabilities better -- by providing a tool for community administrators to move sections on their My Community page around, show or hide a page section, or reword titles and descriptions to their liking.
- We made the Community Management Tools better -- by providing a way for community administrators to more easily review, update, and modify information about their members as needed, and by making it easy to suspend a community member's subscription to a community.
- We made the Moderation System better -- by expanding the scope of information it scans to include member profile information as well as all the content they contribute.
- We made the Inbox better -- by dynamically displaying an alert message whenever a community member has new, unread messages, and providing a direct link to those messages so they are very easy to find.
- We made the Navigation Menu better -- by providing an easier-to-understand dynamically-expanding menu with icons.
There are a number of other things in this version too, things we make the members and administrators of our communities just a little bit happier. Definitely check out our release notes if you'd like to learn more. We hope you enjoy these changes!
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I'm very exited to announce Version 6.4 which contains a number of interesting goodies, mostly centered around the concept of "geo-social networking." That's basically a fancy way of saying "if I'm in Chicago, and you're in Chicago, wouldn't it be cool if an online community could help us connect with one another? And then help us both meet a business partner who is only ten miles outside of town?"
The team did a really great job with this one and I think there are a few features to comment upon:
- If you're running a professional community for your company, you get to specify which places people are associated with. Thus, you can create places like "The Western Sales Office" and "Corporate Headquarters."
- If you have a whole bunch of places of interest to your community -- say, a few hundred branch offices -- you can just import them from a file in one shot.
- The system does all the 'geo-coding' bits behind the scenes.
- Because everything is tightly integrated into the platform, it's pretty easy to do things like say "find me someone who has such-and-such expertise in New York" and then filter down your search results.
If you want the two-minute overview on the feature, check out our wiki pages on geo-social networking. For those of you who are looking for even more details and don't mind opening a PDF are of course always welcome to check out our release notes which we post with every new version.
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 We run our Labs website entirely on the Leverage Community Platform. For us, there are a number of features which provide us with a great deal of value.
First, the wiki is quite useful because we can create as many pages as we like about whatever we like, and post them straightaway. Since we do frequently product releases, it's nice for us to be able to create pages about the newest features, remark on their capabilities, and have that information searchable as soon as it's posted.
Second, a blog like this one is an easy way for us to share what's been going on or what we've been thinking about.
Third, it's fun to drop a widget onto the front page of our Labs site (in this case, one that shows the latest posts to this blog) just to make sure that each new visitor is able to see the updates.
Finally, we're experimenting with our newest feature, the social newsfeed. This feature provides a quick run-down of everything that's been going on on our system, so that visitors can get a quick read of the items that have been updated.
Apart from the particular features that we use, however, the nicest thing for me is just to have a website in which I don't have to ask anyone -- a web designer, "someone in marketing," or anyone -- for anything whenever we want to post a new file about our APIs, or share some information behind our latest features.
Plus, it's flat-out fun to have a place to share what we're working on.
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 We're excited to announce the newest version of the Leverage Community Platform!
The driving theme behind Version 6.3 was to help members of Leverage communities more easily discover the exciting information they are already adding to their communities everyday -- whether they are in blogs, wikis, group discussions, or anywhere.
- The Community Newsfeed broadcasts new content to other community members so they may instantly answer the question "what's the latest?"
- Top Pages provides members with a quick way to view the most highly-rated content
- Top Contributors lists those members who are adding the most valuable content to their communities
- Member Profile Pages are new and improved so that each community member can more easily share not just information about them but their content and contributions as well
- And a new Rich Text Editor helps bloggers to better express their ideas just the way they like
If you'd like to learn more about these features, we try to post everything on our integrated wiki so feel free to take a look around there. We hope you enjoy using these new features as much as we enjoyed building them!
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