Alan Lepofsky
Personal Information
- Social Business: Moving From Sharing to Getting Work Done - It's time for companies to take the training wheels off of "social" and move beyond sharing status updates, links and files. This evolution will include two main areas: a) the integration of task/project management software into social business software, b) the integration of core business processes with social business software (ex: CRM, HR, ERP)
- Social Analytics In The Enterprise: How employees can use analytics to find the right content, colleagues and communities to help them get their jobs done.
- Standards For Social Business Software: How standards such as OpenSocial, Activitystrea.ms and OpenGraph affect the way vendors and business partners build their solutions and the way customers can customize and deploy them.
- Enterprise Application Store Maturity Model: The way software is being deployed is changing. Instead of yearly corporate "hardware/software refreshes", updates and new products are now made available via application stores. An application store needs to be more than just a catalog to be successful, it must include administration tools, licensing models, security, sharing features and analytics.
- Social Business Market Overview: A look at the vendor landscape based on use-cases instead of feature rankings.
- Activity Streams/Newsfeeds: Streams are the new user interface for most social software, but are they any better than overflowing inboxes? This report takes a look at the features that streams need (and don't need) to make social software a better way to work.
- Integrated Suite vs. Best of Breed: IT Executives have always struggled when making vendor decisions with the pros and cons of using a single suite versus integrating best of breed products together. This report will look at how today's cloud infrastructures and open industry standards are affecting these decisions.
Alan is Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc. He is one of the lead analysts on Constellation's research theme, The Future of Work. Alan focuses on how enterprise collaboration software/social business software can help people Get Work Done.
Since 1993, he has been designing, marketing and helping customers deploy software solutions that enable people to connect with their peers and openly share information. Prior to joining Constellation, Alan spent 3 years as Director of Marketing at Socialtext and before that, 14 years in a variety of roles at IBM/Lotus.
2012 research agenda includes:
He's an active blogger and speaker in the "Enterprise 2.0/Social Business" community, where he shares his thoughts on the business benefits of open communication and collaboration.
At Socialtext Alan was responsible for the marketing of Socialtext's enterprise software. He worked with prospects and customers to help them understand how social software can be used to improve core business processes. Alan was also the community manager for Socialtext's customer and business partner communities.
At IBM Alan held several roles ranging from product management in the Lotus brand to supporting the IBM Business Partner ecosystem. Alan's final years at IBM were spent in IBM Software Group's future-thinking strategy team, responsible for bridging IBM research projects with product development.
Alan graduated from the University of Toronto with a B.A.Sc. in Engineering. His major was Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Business and Entrepreneurship.