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Nearly 4 years ago, Tim Minahan launched Supply Excellence with this post, which spoke of addressing key issues that spend management pros were facing on best practices, metrics, strategy, and technology.
Now that all of those issues are resolved, we’re asking “what’s next?”
Ok, that’s not entirely correct. Those questions will never be completely answered since it’s an evolving landscape of risks, opportunities and solutions. Tim’s original premise - that we can all be more successful if we share our thoughts, questions and insights with one another - hasn’t changed. But, how we as professionals use social media and what platforms/tools are available to do so has grown significantly in the past 4 years. And while I won’t go as far as many social media experts and say that “blogs are dead”, I think it’s important to ask if a stand alone blog is still the best way to harness the collective knowledge of a group.
To put this post and the feedback we’re requesting into some further context, we recently launched an online community called Ariba Exchange. As the community manager, I can truly say that the goals - facilitating communication and collaboration - overlap with the original objectives of Supply Excellence. However, from an engagement standpoint, we believe the tools, scale and egalitarian playing field of Ariba Exchange better leverages the collective expertise of our customers and subject matter experts.
So, we have some questions for you - the Supply Excellence reader - to figure out where we go from here. The big questions are …
- Is a blog still an effective platform for addressing spend management questions? Or is it too “top down” to truly harness the collective IQ of the readers?
- Would addressing the same best practices and category/commodity questions on a more robust platform (blogs, social bookmarks, discussion threads, “ideas”, etc) be more valuable to you as a practitioner … and hopefully … participant?
As always, your input is valued here. We’re very proud of the community spirit and content that we’ve built on Supply Excellence, from the early days when Tim was flying solo, to the inclusion of our global category management team as active participants. So it’s with that collective spirit in mind that we want to gauge how we (and I mean “we” to include all of us) best learn from and help one another.
So, what do you think?
Justin Fogarty is Managing Editor of Supply Excellence. For any questions or feedback on the blog or its contributors, Justin can be reached at jfogarty[at]ariba.com.
12 responses so far ↓
1 the doctor // Mar 4, 2010 at 5:54 pm
I hate to be the “Rain Man”, but definitely compounding the problem. Definitely.
http://blog.sourcinginnovation.com/2010/02/24/supply-chain-social-networks-getting-better-but-are-they-compounding-the-problem.aspx
2 Michael Lis // Mar 5, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Without question, the blog is one of the best ways to address and cultivate answers on issues related to any topic. That being said in today’s social media age, the blog is now one of the hardest social media channels to attract and sustain fans and followers to.
I suggest crowdsourcing as faster approach to collectively capture thoughts and opinions.
Here’s a great quote - “The phenomenon of corporations creating goods, services and experiences in close cooperation with experienced and creative consumers, tapping into their intellectual capital, and in exchange giving them a direct say in (and rewarding them for) what actually gets produced, manufactured, developed, designed, serviced, or processed.”
And a great blog (no pun intended) to get started http://compassioninpolitics.wordpress.com/2008/10/01/top-crowdsourcing-websites-and-resources/
3 Charles Dominick, SPSM // Mar 5, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Supply Excellence is a great blog. That being said, it involves a lot of work (read: it costs a lot of money) to produce the quality that you guys are putting out there.
And let’s be honest here…Supply Excellence doesn’t exist to make procurement professionals smarter. It exists to strengthen Ariba’s brand.
Right now, people are willing to share content in the social networking realm because it is sexy to do so. Therefore, if you have a way of getting people to share content (i.e., do the work that a blogger would do) and get the same or better results in terms of branding, then go for it!
The same or better results with less work and cost while seizing on the social media trend while it is hot? Sounds like a plan!
If Supply Excellence calls it day, at least you know you will be going out on top. Other bloggers are dying a slow and painful death as they run out of things to talk about and rely on second-rate guest bloggers, blogs themselves give way to communities, and Twitter serves as the new RSS feed.
In the words of Fall Out Boy “thnks fr th mmrs.” You guys have done a tremendous job through the years.
4 /pd // Mar 5, 2010 at 1:04 pm
I hardly comment on blogs anymore..
blogs are dead..
Social media platforms are the current trend
live streaming is the next big thing
Areas like linkedin, FriendFeed, FB are collective farms for IQ, product sharing and conversational starters.
5 /pd // Mar 5, 2010 at 1:05 pm
FYI.. I trolled your site from my watering hole :)-
http://friendfeed.com/supply-chain-managment/e11e7f35/whats-next-for-supply-excellence-feedback
6 Justin Fogarty // Mar 5, 2010 at 5:28 pm
Thanks for the great, frank input so far (and please everyone, keep it coming). A few points I should make…
@The Doctor: Absolutely agree that the landscape is cluttered. But if a platform has good, engaging content and fosters that sense of community (often by helping the individuals succeed), there is room to rise above the clutter and noise. As a company, we have 4.5M users worldwide and a lot of good subject matter experts in house. So, the goal with Exchange is to facilitate communication across those groups - around solutions, industry, category/commodity, events, etc. - not add to the clutter.
@Michael: Great point on crowdsourcing. Part of the vision is to engage the crowd in “ideation” - for everything from enhancement requests to user group meeting agendas to categories that provide sourcing opportunity.
@Charles: Thanks for the compliment and support. And sorry, I should have made things more clear. We’ll never take our experts out of the content creation process and rely solely on others. Rather, we want our experts to participate - sometimes via blog posts, sometimes via discussion threads, etc. Blogs are by no means dead. It’s just that hosting them in a more engaging platform for readers to participate (and leverage some cool tools like polls, Ideas, discussions, video, etc) seems like a way to increase the value for everyone.
@/pd: Clearly you have your finger on the pulse
Glad you found us and hope we can keep up with you and your expectations!
7 Eldar Dzhafarov // Mar 5, 2010 at 6:21 pm
I don’t honestly think that the blogs are dead. I still believe you guys should continute the great work and attract traffic to your blog.
The stuff you write is not a “me-former” type of material, rather it informs the reader of valuable content.
So I truly think you definitely should keep writing as long as the motivation, desire, and resources are still out there…
8 One more voice // Mar 8, 2010 at 10:27 am
Justin,
My take: The term “blog” is really not suitable anymore. There’s just such a range of what is considered a “blog” these days that discussing the term is too confusing. In the end, however, I think online outlets that create original content aimed at being useful to its readers and not 1. to promote product/services/sponsors or 2. rip apart other content for your own gain will always gain readership through respect. This blog is proof of that. My vote: Keep SE and go DEEPER with the content and let the exchange serve as the peer-to-peer platform (blogs have never been good at connecting users/readers directly).
9 Jason Busch // Mar 8, 2010 at 11:10 am
I think the migration of supply excellence from Tim’s blog to catch-all for commodity and supply trends from Ariba has not entirely worked. It’s solid content, but too high level for category managers (and the themes are too infrequently accessed) and too scattered for senior practitioners looking for summary trends. Go deep or go broad, not both. I would love to see individual blogs by Ariba category specialists as well as an executive blog by Tim and others. That’s my suggestion, for what it’s worth.
10 Jon Hansen // Mar 16, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Here are the links to today’s posts on the Procurement Insights (http://wp.me/p4HrB-1dm) and PI Window on Business (http://wp.me/pydAP-WE) Blogs titled “Ariba’s Expected Decision to Drop Supply Excellence Blog Illustrates How Disconnected the Vendor is from the World of Social Media/Networking.”
11 Supply Excellence — What’s next for Supply Excellence? (Part 2) // Mar 16, 2010 at 7:55 pm
[...] really is?How does Finance view Procurement?AMR Answers Top-of-Mind Questions from Recent WebinarWhat’s next for Supply Excellence? (Feedback requested)The Future of Commercial [...]
12 David Rae // Mar 17, 2010 at 5:56 am
If blogs are dead, then I’m out of a job… But joking aside, blogs remain a vital part of a growing array of publishing platforms that users will continue to turn to in search of information and ideas.
Someone commented that blogs would never make procurement professionals smarter. Maybe so, but they can force people to think differently. They can also help to switch people on to a different way of doing things.
Let’s also not forget that because they are accessible and highly visible to the entire web-browsing world, our blogs also help to make the procurement profession more visible to the wider world, which is good for everyone.
I’ve been in publishing for 15 years now and I’m still hearing that print is dead, never mind blogs. Print isn’t dead (although daily newspaper owners might argue differently) and neither are blogs.
They all remain vital parts of knowledge sharing and information provision of which social platforms will have an important role in. But no more than that.
In nine out of ten cases, social networking is about sharing (read recycling) material. Someone still has to produce the material that’s worth sharing.
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