Toluu : Go Big Always

Go Big Always

Wondering? If so, drop me a line and say hi (sam@gobigalways.com). Then we can electronically send letters to each other and sign those letters like they were real letters. Something like, “Snuggles, Paul.”

I’m leaving Jive. I love Jive.March 24

I’m leaving Jive. I love Jive.

I’ve never had the experience of walking into a company and being inspired, then leaving a company four years later and being just as inspired, if not more. But Jive has been that for me. I’ve never learned as much as I have in my years there. Or worked with amazing people like Dave Hersh (you can read his post about my departure here), Matt Tucker, Bill Lynch and the rest of the team.

Jive has been that magical connection between a market opportunity, a company and a team of amazing individuals. I loved to work with them every day. It’s a team that wakes up and goes to sleep fighting to win. A team that shares a single vision and DNA. A team of people who has what it takes to go big. And that’s exactly what they’re doing.

Going big.

I don’t know how many of you have been lucky enough to have an experience like that in your careers. If not, I hope you do. Everything I’ve ever said about the company, I believe. And I’ve never been more proud of the people there and the mission they are on. I believe in them.

Every parent’s dream for their child

SAP missing the boat (you sunk my battleship?)March 19

The Old Brain

20 years ago, the brain of an organization was at the process level. But now business process is a commodity. Core processes are like the lights on your car. You used to touch them but now they just happen all by themselves. ERP has now moved into being the circulatory system of organizations. Depending on which analyst you listen to, it’s a $30B industry that’s not expanding.

The Slipping Boat

SAP built a multi-billion dollar business building out a process factory. They own the core processes that run business. They will always be there. But the process system is tapped. Information workers (I call them “social workers”) are now operating farther and father from the processes. Instead of a few people touching ERP, a ton of people are touching Social Business Software and doing their work in it. SAP increasingly just happens magically in the backend (like the lights coming on in your car).

The New Brain

The new brain now touches everyone at an organization. But not just them, it also reaches out and touches a company’s partners and customers. While SAP contemplates it’s circulatory system and uses it as the framework t

Jive launches the next big enterprise application categoryMarch 10

When was the last time enterprise software was interesting?

For half of you, the answer is “never.” For some it might have been when CRM finally grew up in the late 90s. Others, maybe when email came to work. Remember that? It was around the time when only people on CompuServe accounts could email each other. And it was a consumer app. You’d email with friends. Then everyone started talking about using email at work. Some were excited you could instantly get information from one person to many people. Some were worried email would unleash hell on earth. Regardless, when it came to work, it touched absolutely everyone at the company and changed the way they worked.

When I interviewed at Jive

It was four years ago. I sat across the table from the founders while they explained their vision. They were convinced there would be–yet again–a big change in the way people would work with each other. And they had been at it for four years already, profitably and 100% bootstrapped. They had a forum product, a knowledge base, some open source instant messaging software and this vision. They believed that in the same way the open source community worked together or in the same way people openly worked with each other in Support communities, that all employees within companies would also work in this open, connected way. They had their sites on building the next big enterprise software company, not some built-to-flip startup.

You can imag

We will make you use this social softwareMarch 4