Whilst the mainstream media players are quietly pushing their technology and innovation teams to the maximum across the world in a race to marry Social Media and TV, most of the public remains oblivious and left out of the loop, mainly due to offerings being in Proof of Concept (POC) stage or not even… and still on the chalkboard.

However, one sector, the Hotel and Hospitality is one of the earlier beneficiaries from the advances that have been made provision and delivery of TV and other services over Internet Protocol will likely be early corporate adopters of Social TV now that network technologies that include the provision of Ethernet networks in hotels is now a standard requirement. Add a wireless keyboard and an advanced TV remote, you can do pretty much anything.

And buzz is starting to generate in this sector as hotels are coming out of a slump and are looking for new ways to attract the web and media savvy 25-45 year old, Gen X and Y generations who are a lucrative target group in many of their marketing strategies. Social TV in a hotel would certainly be an historical PR victory for any marketing team.

IPTV distribution system in hotels is pretty straight forward… providing high quality, full screen digital TV over an Ethernet network using an existing IP network. Not only can digital satellite and terrestrial channels can be broadcast directly to TV’s anywhere in a hotel – but now there’s the opportunity to implement Social TV as well.

We live in a networked society, and our contact list, for most of us who will never see a cradle to grave job, is paramount. Imagine if you could not only sleep in a hotel, but also create a profile in the social TV network and then find others in similar business paths, or potential new partners right in the hotel… whom you could have lunch with or meet up in a pub. Or imagine you could organize short seminars, get people to sign up and do mini ‘unconferences’ or conferences with others whose businesses can converge with you own.

This is great, not only for the guests, but also for the hotel. They will not only be able to offer better service to their clients, but also be able to come to understand their own demographics more… with a Social TV Facebook social media scenario or clone, there’s plenty of data to be shared to everyone, including the hotel… giving them more opportunity to build better services.

Want to book a restaurant? Do it on the TV. Add it to your bill in the Hotel’s Property Management Software (PMS) program and don’t worry about pulling out a credit card. Feel like going to a concert or sporting event while you are in town? Click or type and buy.

Want to download an iPhone or mobile map application with directions from anywhere back to the hotel and listings of all the offerings of the city you are visiting? Plug your PDA or mobile phone into a USB port and suck it down. Need to book the conference room? Do it on the TV. Need to order some food? Pick up the TV remote and choose from room service or an array of restaurants that deliver in the area.

I could even see, in the foreseeable future, a Wii or Xbox network for gaming and sports in hotels. Why not? Feel like a bit of tennis but can’t book a court? Play your neighbor in room 602. Or shoot at the guys in rooms 562 and 788.

It’s only a matter of time before television becomes social in Hotels because it’s a perfect space for rolling out this technology.

I’d be intrigued by a system that automatically feeds me information about what is the most popular Video on Demand flick in the hotel… what others are watching and even reviews of the movies from other guests. A good recommendation engine built into a social TV hotel network could take care of a lot of things… including which restaurants are hot, bars are not, and where are the cool places that tourists don’t normally go.

Based on demographic data built up by the hotels social TV network, hotels could easily build up relationships with local strategic partners that are popular with their guests – offering discounts and other deals.

Want a taxi? Francois, the friendly, is the best in Brussels. Everyone raves about him on the network.

Or imagine you could reach out externally vis a vis the Hotel’s social TV network with Skype (VOIP and chat application) or Facebook and share with you family at home.

Watching television or listening to music together is often a shared activity with co-located family members and it is something to gather around. But can technology support this kind of experience while apart?

Yes. It’s possible. But I am not sure anyone in the industry is going in this direction yet.

When turning your social TV presence on in the hotel, you could also expose you current status on media usage to those at home and in the hotel (what music you are listening to, what program you are watching or game you are playing). Others could join in on the media session that you are currently running and can then scale to other levels of connection.

If the hotel industry manages to adhere to one or two IPTV system which includes social TV, preferably open source, or finds another way to standardize the product, then your social profile can even be ported to multiple hotels, saving you time and work plugging your details into every hotel you stay in.

Orca Interactive’s recent deal with SoftAtHome and Viaccess looks to be a strong contender for setting a social TV standard for the entire broadcast industry. Backed by France Telecom aka Orange, there’s over 200 million subscribers worldwide on the books and, though a minority are on the digital TV program, there’s still strong potential to set the bar in the European industry in particular.

Orca and Viaccess were smart to tie the knot with Softathome. Their Open API and plug in, plug out architecture promises to facilitate easy development and rapid scaling with an easy frame not only for third party developers to innovate and create revenue streams, but also the system is built to hitch up to almost any existing IPTV box or configuration. Their attitude is reminiscent of online open source leaders and if it plays out right, a rather large developer community will be built up fast – such as open source CMS Joomla has done over the past five years in the web world – to literally hundreds of thousands of builders and users driving innovation and knowledge sharing to build a better product for everyone.

Building blocks of the SoftAtHome Operating Platform are deployed today in more than 6 million Home Gateways and one million Set Top Boxes on the Orange network across Europe.

Putting it in hotels will be simple.

It looks like, on paper, Orca Interactive will go after the ISP’s and other IPTV suppliers and SoftAtHome will be targeting the home and possibly the hospitality and hotel markets.

SoftAtHome is a software company created by Orange, Thomson and Sagem Communications to deliver total convergence through a home operating platform for the home digital environment. It fosters a new ecosystem made up of service providers, 3rd party application developers, integrators and hardware vendors to accelerate the advent of the Digital Home. The company is headquartered in France with development and sales teams in France and Belgium. The Home Operating Platform enables Service Providers to deliver and monetize convergent applications for the digital home.

Orca Interactive (LSE-ORCA) is a leading provider of IPTV middleware and applications, empowering broadband operators and service providers to deliver broadcast TV, video on demand (VOD), personal video recording (PVR), home media and other compelling interactive services.

Viaccess SA, a France Telecom company, delivers solutions for digital pay television and secured content distribution. Its mission is the development, production and marketing of conditional access and DRM-based systems for all types of networks, broadcast (satellite, cable, terrestrial, MMDS, DVB-H, etc.) and broadband (DSL,FTTH, 3G, etc.). The constant growth of the pay TV market and digital content not only boosts direct to home distribution by satellite, cable, terrestrial and broadband over IP networks, but it also represents an enormous opportunity for the entertainment industry.

Richard Kastelein, a social media strategist and publisher, is CEO of new startup, Agora Media Group LLC (link), a new creative and innovation agency based in London, UK. He works with partners in the global travel industry and in emerging technology such as Social TV. Kastelein has been building online communities for over a decade and is an Open Source evangelist. He’s an adept team player – a publisher, writer, photographer, marketing director, web developer and graphic designer with more than 20 years experience in the development and operation of newspapers, magazines, web media and marketing of multinational, companies in international settings.

Link here – http://ww.liferay.com/web/guest/products/social_office/features

This Open Source software almost meets all the parameters I was looking for and I am sure will streamline internal tasking, collaboration and build more ‘teamness’ at the company.

But the biggest hurdle in implementing new software such as this is convincing people to use it. Some basic training is required to make people comfortable using it, and if people don’t feel comfortable with the software, they simply won’t use it. Employees should be given incentives to contribute and the rewards could be either financial or psychological.

Shifting a corporate culture from being competitive to being cooperative is no small undertaking but the staff is young here and more easily adaptable than Gen X’ers like me – and if the software used (built internally or from and outside vendor) has well-built, intuitive and intelligent architecture, the learning curve should not be that steep.

My original synopsis on needs:

The new collaborative work/communication/tasking product(s) should allow management (and staff in certain cases) to:

1. …assign track-able tasks to individual and/or groups of staff and define what is urgent. Include management and staff alerts by email and Gizmo (see #3). The idea is for management to better plan their tasks and duties, that of staff, as well as projects and, most importantly, track the progress. Management needs to see what the team is doing and what they need to do, discuss stuff that they are working on and generally have a firm grip on what is going on and what needs to go on. In my opinion, the current system of email alone is not a very good tool to manage projects and tasks in the company. Especially with current projected and anticipated growth.

2. …create Wikis (with WYSIWYG and Versioning, Revisioning) to start building corporate information database – documents on nuts and bolts of company. It’s my experience that when management and staff take time to write down and better define their role and duties they instantly increase performance. Company Wikis also build an excellent knowledge database for incoming staff and management – thereby making it simpler to integrate new people into the company by providing them with the data needed to do their work and understand the work of others.

3. …instantly communicate with other management, staff and possibly clients and vendors – using free Gizmo (Skype-like tool with Instant Messaging, Two-way SMS, Group Chat, Voicemail, Call Recording, Chat History, File Transfer. Video Calling, Conference Calling) for text-based and audio discussion and interaction in real time. The problem with using email as a core tool for communications is – it tends to create lag time from the top down because of uncertainty if, when, and how emails are being read and interpreted. Trackable, loggable real time communications allow for the instant addressing of issues. The reason for using Gizmo as opposed to Skype is to deter and cut down on staff social communications via the more common Skype.

4. Install an ethos of collective intelligence within the company – which is shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals. This can be done by offering the ability to share news, research, event information via threaded discussion. For instance – a sample thread may be on data and image sources for copywriters for a new artist or concert.
Software(s) should/could have collaborative management of tasks and documents within a knowledge-based business environment so workers can communicate, evaluate, prioritize and study their work load and should:

1. have easy browser based workflow management – with a drag-and-drop modulized user home page for each staff member with all their productivity and information tools at their grasp with integration of built in a news management system, where “company news” can be published on all home pages.

2. have the ability to add or remove application functionality to suit requirements via a dashboard and widget framework

3. have an instant messaging, real time collaboration tool such as Gizmo

4. have a tasking tool to schedule, track, and chart the steps of tasks, projects and duties as they are being completed – includes issue/ticket based worklog, weekly planning and and daily/weekly/monthly timer based recording.

5. inclusion of electronic calendar integrated with tasking tool, CRM and David Infocenter to create visual shared and individual agenda and automatically notify and remind group members of tasks via email and Gizmo alerts

6. possibly have desktop sharing for training new staff and meetings.

7. have the ability to create new permission-based Wikis (with a WYSIWYG Editor for easy content authoring) to create content in a matter of minutes and make updates fast and easy. All relevant editors and lists should have a corresponding “printable version”, which can also be in PDF format.

8. include outgoing RSS for staff and management to allow tracking of tasking, documentation ect. (”subscribe to this feed” button)

9. have integrated file management capabilities; graphics, documents, etc at the project/tasks entry points as project/task attachments. With Versioning, file locking, authoring and classification supported.

10. have user/staff reporting – most active, content creation, etc. as well as export report capabilities

11. have permission system ranging from wide open Wiki -edit mode to granular user and page level access and be able to create custom access permissions for groups of users, as well as control access by different groups at the section or page level 12. have full text search, search by section or sub-section, the ability to tag pages with additional keywords for improved search and display, and control search results based on users assigned access levels. Staff will only view the sections and pages they are authorized to view.

13. have threaded discussion support for projects, procedures, products, ideas, best practices – which can later be added to Wikis

14. have the ability to share news, research, product information via threaded discussion

15. Consider the use of a voting system for contributions to discussions.

Liferay Features.

We take the best of social networking and content management and package it into one neat solution. Whether you’re in the same room or in different hemispheres, Liferay Social Office can revolutionize the way you work without forcing you to change.
Work from the Desktop

Liferay Social Office lets you work from your desktop. It features integration with Microsoft Office, which means that when you update files and documents from your local drive, they can be automatically uploaded to your Social Office online.

Liferay Social Office makes use of publicly available Sharepoint protocols to allow users to open, save, version, lock, and share documents directly between Liferay Social Office and Microsoft Office. This opens up new ways of integrating desktop workflow with web-based collaboration and document storage. For example, a marketing team working on a new product campaign can store Powerpoints, brochures, copy and graphics in a Social Office workspace’s document library and brainstorm ideas using our integrated IM, Wiki, and Forums.
Document Library

Liferay Social Office acts as a web-based shared drive. Instead of worrying about multiple copies of the same document and duplicate work, use our secure Document Library to centralize and organize all your files. Time-saving features are built in, including multiple file uploads and familiar desktop folders. You can even change a file’s format at the time of upload (ie, .doc to .pdf).
Team Calendar

Create, manage, and search for group events using the community-based calendar with task lists. Events can be shared across different departments, and event reminders can be set up to alert users of upcoming events by email, IM, or SMS.
Wikis

Beyond document sharing, Social Office provides full-featured Wikis to facilitate communal information capture and gathering. Team members can easily start new wiki entries to build up a team’s personal online encyclopedia.
Blogs

Convey information and facilitate conversations around blogs directly. Liferay’s Blogs provide the best features of modern blogging tools and allow you to keep up with everyone’s thoughts and activities via dynamic RSS feeds to your email or a “Recent Blogs” display.
Message Boards

Message Boards are a perfect solution for facilitating conversations within a department or project team that is collaborating around shared ideas, or for capturing and sharing the tacit knowledge of your workgroup.

Liferay’s Message Board tool rivals standalone products in its feature set with RSS alerts, email-based subscriptions and replies, and tie in with activity tracking. Liferay’s Message Boards are secured by our granular system of authorizations which grants varying levels of control to administrators and users.

Sites

Sites are separate, secured areas you can create in Social Office that can be used for the various departments or teams within your organization. Each Site has its own set of collaboration tools (wiki, message boards, blogs), shared calendar and shared document library.

Creating a Site is simple and can be completed with no page refresh! Create as many spaces as you like and as you need.
Email

Instead of toggling between Liferay and your preferred email client, simply send and check email directly through Social Office.

A full AJAX-based webmail client can be configured to interface with many popular IMAP email servers.
Instant Message

Built-in Instant Messaging gives you access to all logged-in team mates. Chat boxes stay at the bottom of your screen as you navigate through Social Office and conversations remain secure behind your firewall.
Activity Tracking

See what everyone is up to. Activity tracking keeps tabs on personal and team activity and displays this information in various “Recent Activity” viewers for each specific tool, for all items tagged with a certain key word and on a Facebook-style Activity Wall.

Tracking works for wiki entries, blogs, message boards and recent activity in the document library!
Announcements & Alerts

Broadcast messages to different group of users whether they are simple announcements or “newsletter”-like in purpose.

Each person can control how they receive alerts: via portal-based web alert, SMS, Email or any additional delivery mechanisms configured by the portal administrator.