A review of corporate sustainability collaboration software

I was just reading Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Social Software research report which is a must read for anyone on a green team considering rolling out a collaboration platform around sustainability. If you haven't read any of Gartner's "Magic Quadrant" reports, they are essentially 20+ page reviews of vendors in a particular space where on page 1 they plot all the players on a 2-by-2 of their choosing. On the right is the quadrant they chose for social software. It basically shows 30-odd vendors on two dimensions: completeness of vision and ability to execute.

The first thing you will notice is that all the vendors are clustered in the bottom left (i.e. incomplete vision and low ability to execute). Great, that was helpful, Gartner! But seriously, at least you have some semblance of order and you can pick the "least worst" on the dimension of your interest.

If you're on a green team and are trying to select a collaboration platform for sustainability, reading this report is necessary but not sufficient. I say that because there are two additional dimensions that you must consider which are not addressed in the Gartner review: open versus closed and general versus focused (on sustainability).

Open versus closed. A closed platform is one where participation is restricted to only employees of your firm and open means anyone can participate. Most firms when thinking about sustainability take a broad view of their footprint and that requires collaborating with employees as well as suppliers and distributors, and sometimes even customers, among others. That means a solution like SharePoint which often is deployed with LDAP integration (i.e. single sign-on with existing network credentials) is an incomplete solution because it pretty much limits participation to employees. On the other hand, most companies don't want an entirely open network where their internal deliberations are open for any and all to scrutinize. A completely open platform quickly becomes swamped in sales pitches, job inquiries, preaching and evangelism--some helpful but in aggregate overwhelming. If you don't believe me, check out one of the 1000+ green forums on LinkedIN.

General versus focused (on sustainability). A generic collaboration platform has a lot of benefits including scalability, compatibility with existing infrastructure, familiarity by the users, cost, etc. But general platforms lack the unique knowledge and vocabulary of sustainability focused collaboration platforms. The benefit of sustainability focused platforms is they come with a taxonomy for describing the issues companies face as well as content and a network. The downside of most of these platforms is they are smaller, have a shorter track record and on a per user basis are likely more expensive.

Above and beyond the important criteria identified by Gartner in their research, these are the two dimensions that we considered heavily in designing Viridus. Our solution is what we call the "gated community" concept.

Essentially what we have done is created a gated community with Viridus where we manage the security at the front gate. Individual members of the community don't have to worry about who gets in because they know that the policy is only corporate sustainability professionals responsible for their company's direct/indirect footprint are allowed in. That means no vendors, consultants, press, regulators and NGOs. Within Viridus, companies can own a private home (the equivalent concept would be a private company group within Viridus). Private company groups allow companies and their green teams to collaborate with each other, but also to interact with other professionals inside of the "gated community" of Viridus.

What happens if a company wants to invite a vendor or consultant to participate? Well, as a "home owner" in the gated community, you just have to leave your guest's name with security at the front gate and they will be allowed in (although they will only have access to your house).

We think it's a great model for individual corporate sustainability professionals but also for companies, their green teams and their employees. We are still working out details of pricing for private company groups but it will be priced as an ASP. If you are interested in learning more, please contact us.