I got to pose a few questions to the super-busy (and super-smart) Ross Mayfield, Chairman of Socialtext, last week. I wanted to get his take on the state of the social software industry in ligh of the fact that we are likely headed in to a recession, as well as his opinion on the "state of the wiki".



Bill: You have been in the community and collaboration space for some time. What are the key online trends you are tracking as web2.0 hype starts to die down and the specter of a recession looms?

Ross: We started Socialtext in the last recession, back in 2002. Its interesting that Social Software took hold then, perhaps people took to blogging when they were unemployed. But seriously, there are some key trends that will continue regardless of the hype cycle and macroeconomic conditions:
- NetGens, the first generation to grow up with the internet throughout their lives, are in their second year of employment after college. This is the largest demographic shift, at the same time when the Baby Boom generation is retiring, and will have a profound impact on adoption of social software, organizational culture and work preferences and styles.
- The Consumerization of IT, where innovation happens first in consumer markets, is adapted for the enterprise or driven by individuals serving themselves with SaaS and Open Source alternatives without IT
- Individuals trust peers more than institutions to inform their decisions. This not only impacts consumer marketing, but politics and management.
- Its become common for people to express a facet of their identity publicly on the net, and values of transparency over privacy are changing
- The cost of personal publishing and forming groups that can take action is falling to zero
- Enterprise Social Software is being treated as a serious category of enterprise software by executives and IT, especially as more case studies demonstrate business value.

As we enter into a recession, enterprise budgets will tighten, but it remains to be seen if the relative low cost of Social Software solutions are impacted. We have seen a change in Financial Services, but so far its fairly contained. However, the US isn't the only market where companies have difficulties collaborating.


Bill: How has the role of the wiki in online communities changed over the last 2-3 years. What has surprised you?

Ross: We have seen the use case evolve from small groups of technical users doing project communication and lightweight documentation, to non-technical users as usability improved. Mass collaboration started to be realized a couple of years ago, where wikis are testing the scaling limit of productive communities. Now we are seeing process-specific implementations to enhance productivity and sustainable innovation, in solution areas like collaborative intelligence between marketing and the Field, participatory knowledgebases fo service and support, flexible client communication for professional services and business social networks for partners and customers.

Bill: What is on the Horizon for Socialtext?

Ross: While we advance the state of the art for wikis as a tool and the best practices for deriving value from them, I think you will see Socialtext become more social. There is a lot of room for innovation in this large marketing opportunity.