"Enterprise" is the one of the current buzzwords du jour in the internet space.  Every online vendor and their brother is touting their enterprise features. But what does "Enterprise" really mean?

- Has An Output That Meets The Needs of Customers And The Organization:  The outcome or results of interacting with enterprise software should help meet the information needs of Customers as well as the information needs/productivity needs of the organization and its partners.

- Is Organizationally Focused:  Enterprise features should allow sharing and branding of content as part of simply using the system. When members of an organization interact with the feature, they shouldnt have to worry about changing the branding or implementing sharing. A set of business rules should cover the needs of most of the branding and sharing needs for the organization's membership.  Ideally, an organization can license or self host a private version of the functionality on their own servers, if required.

- Remains Simple When Used In Volume: Enterprise functionality should be focused on delivering only content that is contextually relevant to what the customer needs. Many features that work well for individuals simply fall apart when used in a situation where more than a few people are sharing content.

A good example of functionality that doesn't work for customers but is often touted as an "enterprise feature" is sharing video content in a single channel or network. Imagine a real estate office that creates a channel or network and starts to upload 20-30 new videos per week. Unfiltered dumping of content into a channel quickly can become a mess for customers.

- Shouldn't Require Working With Website Code: After the initial implementation, enterprise software should handle all required code changes as part of using the system. When you only have a few people working in a business, everyone can have access to the blog or website code without issues. However, when many people potentially have to make even small changes to website code, the risk of a problem rises geometrically.

Imagine a large brokerage that implements a video strategy and then finds that they need to cut and paste an iframe or cut and paste HTML code into craigslist for for every property that they have. Yikes, there isnt anything enterprise about that.

- Simplifies Business Processes Instead Of Creating More Work: The costs of identifying and implementing enterprise software are ideally offset by the benefits that the organization receives.  The use of the software shouldnt create more manpower requirement or continually distract employees from their core business because of the need for manual intervention.  Content should just "show up" whereever and whenever it is required.

A example of a system that saves time and effort is Vidlisting's ability to upload a video right into a branded widget and/or right into a listing on the organization's website without any cutting and pasting in either case.  The video content simply shows up with the right branding and in the right location.

- Allows Easy Setting Of Rules For Access Control: Enterprise content management system should not be public by default or accessible in any way if in a private state. The methid for changing access to content should have the capability to apply broad rules across thousands of pieces of content or focused down to one or two pieces of content.  Ideally, the organization can also apply restrictions in specal cases that lower levels can't overturn.

- Allows Collaboration In A Way That Makes The Whole More Than The Parts: Enterprise content management systems add value to the content and allow organization's members to add additional value through colaboration. Vidlisting has released a virtual folder feature for instance that lets members share and collaborate on content (see the demo video ).

Hopefully, this post provides some things to think about the next time you read about enterprise features. If you dont have a large organization, enterprise features likely wont benefit you much.  That said, enterprise features online do provide a powerful value-add and cost savings for organizations with enterprise needs.  if you recognize any of the above as a unfilled need, that's likely you.

Tony

See Also

Are You Giving Away Your Branding To Your Video Provider
The Future of Real Estate Video
Things YouTube Cant Do: Upload Video Directly Into A Online Listing On Your Own Site
Defining "Enterprise Ready": A Guide To Online Video Platforms For Brokers, Agencies, Associations, And Listing Portals
How To Use Local Video To Drive Traffic To Your Own Neighborhood Pages And Not Your Video Provider's Site
Videographers: Why Limit Yourself To 100MB Uploads?
Monetize Your Organization’s Content With New Premium Platform Features
Understanding The Real Estate Video Space

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Tony Grey is a software developer and online media specialist working for a real estate video site that builds cutting edge real estate video and content solutions in multiple languages for use in real estate websites and operates multimedia-enabled websites for real estate brokers and associations. He just launched an Real Estate Educational Media Library website which is a collaborative online real estate education site between MediaDev, S.A. and the U.S. National Association Of REALTORS®. He also is focused on bringing a set of multimedia programming interfaces (APIs) to website developers through his online multimedia and marketing platform site.

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