Adobe Systems recently commissioned a pair of studies by Forrester Consulting to better understand the attitudes, behaviors and expectations of knowledge workers in the U.S. and Europe around technologies for collaboration. The key findings reveal many similarities between the two surveyed audiences, including that most collaborate frequently, but tend to prefer older tools and methods with which they are comfortable -- telephone, face-to-face meetings, and e-mail with attachments -- while also recognizing some of the limitations of these traditional means. The study results also indicate an interest among the majority of workers in learning about newer technologies and services that can make collaboration faster and more efficient, reduce the use of paper, minimize redundant tasks and enable the production of more complex, dynamic documents.
Michael Londgren, Director of Product Marketing for Acrobat, joined Adobe Systems right before the launch of Acrobat 9. We had a chance to catch up with Londgren recently and get his thoughts on the studies, as well as on collaboration as practiced at Adobe.
Surveying issues and insights of collaboration
To find out how others working in similar business environments feel about the current and future adoption of collaboration tools and processes, Adobe Systems commissioned Forrester to conduct an independent survey of so-called knowledge workers in the United States in 2009 and Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) in 2008.
According to Londgren, there are three key findings with the studies.
"First, knowledge workers in the U.S. and Europe are surprisingly aligned with their perceptions around collaboration in the enterprise, with an exception around document security.
"Second, workers universally see shortcomings with traditional ways of collaborating such as telephone and e-mail, and are looking for improvements.
"And finally, although there's been significant interest in Web 2.0 technologies as ways to improve collaboration, adoption of these tools in the enterprise has been very low to date."
"The Acrobat team does broad market surveys every one to two years," says Londgren. "In 2007, we did a Harris Interactive study where we looked at some common challenges of knowledge workers. We commissioned the recent U.S. and European studies to take a deeper dive into perceptions around collaboration today -- to better understand their requirements, habits, tools, concerns and desired improvements about how they need and want to collaborate."
Londgren and his team are now reviewing the results of the study -- Building the Future of Collaboration -- comparing and contrasting the practices and attitudes of the geographically disparate audiences.
Key themes and relevant statistics
The Forrester study follows five key themes, highlighting relevant statistics that help illustrate the conclusions:
1. Knowledge workers' need for real-time collaboration
While workers today are spending an increasing amount of time collaborating across time, space and geographic boundaries (both within and outside the company), they tend to rely to a great extent on familiar -- although not necessarily ideal or effective -- communication tools. Forrester notes that:
- Telephone (87%) and, when possible, face-to-face meetings (77%) are the predominant means of collaboration.
- E-mail and attachments (77%) comprise the primary mode of collaborating across boundaries of time and location.
- Workers experience core problems with the use of e-mail for both collaboration and information gathering, and would like to learn about new tools. Speed and efficiency of collaboration (68%) and reduction of paperwork (68%) are the top benefits sought when looking for improved ways to collaborate with others.
2. The Web 2.0 gap between tool availability and adoption
While some newer communication tools -- such as blogs, wikis and social networks -- are being adopted more quickly for personal use, none have broad adoption for collaboration in business settings, the study showed. Some of that could change as the older generation retires, as younger workers express more confidence in the newer tools. Forrester notes that:
- Conferencing technologies are catching on with distributed teams, but have not reached critical mass.
- New technologies address some needs but -- so far -- do not present a mass-market solution; adoption remains low, at 7% for social networks, 5% for blogs and 4% for wikis.
"I think adoption rates for some of the newer tools like Wikis in the enterprise is low because they're not easy for the average knowledge worker to set up and use," says Londgren. "People want to be able to collaborate quickly and easily."
3. Challenges in gathering information quickly, accurately and efficiently
Sixty-three percent of surveyed workers say they collect the same multiple pieces of information -- primarily by e-mail or phone -- from a number of people they work with about once a month or more. They express interest in learning about better solutions, complaining that current tools need to:
- Be faster and more efficient (66%)
- Reduce the need to retype gathered information (55%)
- Reduce paper (51%)
- Be more engaging (47%)
"Looking at the challenges in gathering information," Londgren says, "it's pretty striking that 63% say they collect the same multiple pieces of information at least once a month. "It's clear knowledge workers are interested in finding better approaches to gathering information than current methods."
4. The increasing need to create compelling communications
Forrester reports that the bar for more compelling and effective ways to communicate is rising, and the current tools will not fully empower knowledge workers.
- Knowledge workers will need to create collaborative communications in an ever-more compelling way. Today, 45% of US knowledge workers need to create high-impact, engaging communications once a month or more. And 76% of these communications involve combining multiple documents of different file types (text, images, photos, graphics, videos, forms, technical docs, etc,) to clearly create an impression, tell a story, detail a case or make a convincing argument.
- Default tools do not give knowledge workers the edge they need. Compound PPTs (53%) and multiple e-mail attachments (51%) are the preferred methods, but have clear deficiencies. Primary knowledge worker complaints include software version issues (56%), not knowing whether the recipient will understand the meaning or complete story being told (38%) and lack of control over the narrative (37%). "People want to have a lot more impact with the kinds of documents they are producing," says Londgren. "We're seeing more media types being pulled into content. That was a key motivation in the decision to offer PDF Portfolios in Acrobat 9."
5. Securing sensitive information
Overall, the survey found that knowledge worker behavior and attitudes are not in tune with enterprise IT security concerns. A couple of the statistically significant differences between workers the U.S. and Europe had to do with matters of information security.
- Knowledge workers are regularly sharing sensitive information. More than half of those surveyed indicated that they create and share sensitive information or documents every two to three weeks or more.
- To secure shared information, knowledge workers use PDFs and passwords; US knowledge workers are far more likely (58%) to use software controls to protect sensitive information than Europeans (38%).
"In a recent, separate study by Forrester, close to 90% of the IT security groups surveyed indicate they view the protection of sensitive data and intellectual property as a top requirement within Information Technology departments," Londgren says. "Based on the more recent Forrester collaboration studies, only 50% of the workers who are regularly sharing sensitive information say they're confident the information is secure. That's a pretty big disconnect and an opportunity area for improvement."
Acrobat-based collaboration solutions at Adobe
When he reads the list of collaboration issues that workers are saying they face, he notes "Acrobat already addresses a lot of these issues via capabilities such as shared reviews, PDF portfolios, form creation and management, and various document security capabilities."
"A key challenge we face with Acrobat," he says, "is driving awareness among knowledge workers that Acrobat is a lot more than PDF creation. Acrobat can solve many of the core collaboration challenges knowledge workers face today and that were highlighted in the Forrester studies."
Londgren's Acrobat marketing team, and Adobe on a global scale, are using Adobe collaborative tools including Acrobat 9, Acrobat Connect Pro, LiveCycle Enterprise Suite and Acrobat.com in a big way -- and with noteworthy results. One key is that Adobe's collaboration solutions have been built on top of the way people work today, he says, rather than try to require people to make dramatic changes outside their comfort and experience levels.
"From my perspective, Adobe is world class in collaboration," says Londgren, ticking off the company's more prominent collaboration-oriented products and services of which the company both practices and preaches the benefits.
PDF Portfolio-based presentations
"The Acrobat team makes pretty extensive use of PDF Portfolios," he says. "Like most marketing teams, we need to pull together extensive content for different audiences ranging from sales teams to customers. With PDF Portfolios, we're able to pull together content ranging from presentations to videos to ROI models into single PDF files that are easy for recipients to consume."
Forms-based processes with LiveCycle Enterprise Suite
Adobe also utilizes its LiveCycle Enterprise Suite across the organization for things like annual reviews -- individuals fill out a PDF form that gets routed internally through management and human resources. "The whole process is managed in a very intuitive way," says Londgren, "leveraging e-mail notifications and PDF forms, tools that people are very familiar with. And it's paperless."
Live collaboration through Acrobat Connect Pro
He also raves about Acrobat Connect Pro, which Adobe employees use extensively. "Employees use Connect for meetings of all sizes, ranging from 1:1s to employee all hands," says Londgren. "Probably 80% of my meetings involve a Connect session," notes Londgren. "A typical example is our weekly team meetings, where on-site team members in a conference room will all log into the same Connect session, and remote employees will log-in as well. We can easily pass presenting rights from one participant to another, track action items in our note pods and record meetings for others to view later."
Document creation and sharing with Acrobat.com
"We also leverage Acrobat.com for such things as co-authoring documents and presentations," he says. "It also serves as the infrastructure for supporting shared reviews through Acrobat. My team uses Acrobat.com for keeping each other up-to-date on a weekly basis in terms of key initiatives we've got underway. It's very easy for people to go in and update the single file."
From his recent experience at Adobe, Londgren says he sees that "when these tools are leveraged, they can have a big impact on overall productivity within the organization." The study findings indicate that a majority of workers are interested in learning about new tools, so creating greater awareness is an important first step.
"There's awareness, and then there's also a natural technology adoption curve," says Londgren. "As new technologies and capabilities become available, there's certainly a time element in terms of how new technologies get adopted. We consistently see greater use of capabilities over time."
Sometimes external factors can trigger momentum shifts in adoption of new tools, he says, pointing to the global economic downturn and the current H1N1 pandemic, both which lend themselves to greater use of collaboration technologies, he says, while significantly reducing both paperwork and travel costs.
"We've significantly decreased travel throughout the company given the recession," says Londgren, "but are able to collaborate effectively while maintaining -- and even improving -- productivity."
"I know with my own team, I've asked people to stay at home if they're not feeling well," says Londgren. "If they want to work, they can participate in meetings via Connect. That way we can still keep projects moving forward, but without risking the health of teammates."
Register for your free copy of the Forrester study, Building the Future of Collaboration.