Vantage 2013: Another fine vintage

Today’s post comes from Norv Leong, Director of Product Marketing at Actiance.

Just like any popular restaurant, Microsoft continues to deliver sumptuous dishes and please its customers.  Let’s take Microsoft Lync as an example.  According to Microsoft, Lync revenue grew 45% in its Q4 2012 and, even more eye-popping, was the 822% growth in hosted Lync Voice in particular.

Goodness all around, but it’s all for naught if you’re in a regulated industry and/or subject to a lot of potential litigation, where having records of everything is absolutely critical.  What counts is that you have a management solution in place that can capture and monitor Lync communications so you stay out of regulatory and legal trouble.

Think of it as a wine pairing.  Meals at restaurants are almost always enhanced with a glass of fine wine (or perhaps a craft beer for you beer lovers out there).  It complements the meal and ensures a holistic experience.

That’s where we come into the picture.  Actiance has been and continues to be the gold standard with respect to its varietal of wine, namely, the management of unified communications platforms.   Rather than get complacent and rest on our laurels, we’ve actually done the opposite.  We’ve managed to make an awesome product, even awesomer!  (Not sure if that’s a word, but today it is.)

With the release of Vantage 2013, Actiance has set the bar even higher for ensuring compliance and security for the leading UC platform on the planet.  Just taking a look at the latest features included in the release and it’s a no-brainer why financial services companies, technology firms, and government agencies all turn to Actiance to meet their governance requirements.

Let’s start with the obvious:  support for Lync 2013.  Vantage picks up right where it left off in Lync 2010.  Vantage supports the monitoring and capture of Lync IM, Persistent chat, and now Voice.  Dodd-Frank and PRA/FCA (for our UK friends) regulations are driving demand for Lync voice recording solutions, and Vantage is the cleanest solution in town to do just that.

Next up is real-time Jive capture.  UC may be growing leaps and bounds, but the enterprise social software space is growing even faster.  Jive’s the poster child of the space, and Vantage 2013 adds real-time capture support so you don’t miss a thing.  The social space is dynamic, and it’s important not to miss any key postings, deletions, and edits that a regulator, auditor, or attorney would find of interest.

Finally, you’ve got direct integration with Symantec Enterprise Vault, the beast in the email archiving space.  By integrating directly with EV, customers can retain the invaluable metadata so crucial to quickly understand the essence of conversations in a social world.  With all the blogging, commenting, replying, and sharing going on, it’s imperative to have a tagging and archiving workflow that retains as much context as possible.  Without it, your legal and IT costs can blow through the roof.

So, Actiance provides benefits on several fronts – from UC to collaboration to archiving.  With governance headaches out of the way, a compliance officer or general counsel can sit down, relax, and enjoy that glass of Vantage 2013.

Enterprise Collaboration: Debunking Common Misperceptions

Today’s post comes from Norv Leong, Director of Product Marketing at Actiance.

As social software becomes entrenched on the enterprise scene, now would be a good time to put to rest some common misperceptions and myths that have hung ominously over the space.  The Jive IPO and Microsoft’s acquisition of Yammer speak to the validation and adoption of social software as a viable means to enhance productivity and foster engagement.

So, with that as a backdrop, let’s take a look at some common misperceptions and see how we can’t allay these concerns:

Myth #1:  Social software isn’t subject to regulatory guidelines

Social media and social software may be new forms of communication, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be logged and archived for regulatory compliance purposes.  In the eyes of the regulatory bodies (think SEC, FINRA, FERC, and similar), social software is just another form of electronic communication to be treated no differently than email.  That means that content posted to social software platforms needs to be supervised, logged, and archived to ensure compliance with applicable recordkeeping and monitoring provisions.  Since social software greatly facilitates collaboration, it’s very easy for individuals to bounce ideas (sometimes sensitive or unauthorized information) off each other and exchange files.  That’s why the regulators are interested.

Myth #2:  No one cares about social software eDiscovery

Anyone who’s lived in the US for any length of time will quickly and vigorously nod their head when asked, “Do you think the US is a litigious society?”  That’s like asking the Pope if he’s religious.  People do care about social software eDiscovery, and over the last few years, we’ve begun to see several cases emerge involving social.  Lester v Allied and Crispin v Audigier come to mind as particularly relevant cases involving social media eDiscovery.

In fact, Duke University conducted a comprehensive study and found that the number of eDiscovery cases jumped from 7 in 2003 to 111 in 2009.  The study cited that the #1 reason for courts issuing sanctions was a failure to produce electronic evidence (social software included).  And, like litigation in general, there seems to be no end in sight.

Myth #3:  Corporate governance has nothing to do with social software  

Au contraire.  Social software has everything to do with corporate governance, especially in an era where news travels lightning fast via social channels.  You needn’t look further than the Arab Spring to see the speed and power of social in action.

Good corporate governance entails having the appropriate policies and procedures in place for records retention, information governance, and conflict management.  It’s wide-ranging with the objective of instilling a sense of accountability throughout the company.  And this includes social software communications.  People use social software to brainstorm, debate, and even vent.  Say or write the wrong thing, and all of a sudden, it becomes a corporate governance issue.

Myth #4:  Plain ol’ capture is sufficient

Well, not exactly.  Following on from the discussion above, responding in a timely fashion to discovery requests sounds easy but comes with some challenges.  When you think about the volume of data floating around out there (emails, social software content, Facebook posts, Skype IMs, etc.), you’ll get a headache right quick.  Those headaches are compounded by the manner in which this content is logged and archived.

Many of today’s archiving systems just capture the content without regard to context.  We all know that people like to respond to blogs or other posts on social media.  When you’ve got a couple dozen people chiming in with their thoughts, feedback, even deleted comments, it’s easy to see the importance of capturing conversations in context.  There are just too many regulatory, legal, and corporate governance issues at stake to risk a substantial sanction or fine.

Off my soapbox now…

So there you have it – this author’s version of Mythbusters.  Like with most things social, it’s all quite fluid and dynamic.  What I just wrote today may be old hat tomorrow.  But, given that old-school concepts such as law and compliance still hold valid today, I gotta believe that the myths debunked above has some legs.

What kinds of myths are you seeing in your enterprise?