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 is that they succeed beyond their wildest dreams. And every company needs different things at different parts of their growth. These are natural events, the coming and going of people in a company to help them achieve what’s needed. Jive has grown a ton. They have been proclaimed the leaders. They have defined a completely new category. And this, is an organic parting of ways for us. It’s the way companies are supposed to grow.

Chapter Big

It’s time for me to make more big things happen. To work on new things. To change the rules and create breakthroughs. I’ll be sharing more soon. But for now, just know that I’m leaving Jive at the end of the month. And join me in wishing them lots of luck.

I know I do.

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 to push into extremities and other systems like CRM (sensory system) or SCM (digestive system), it’s hugely missing out on how to capture the new brain.

A New Battleship

It’s not too late, though SAP needs to recognize this and they’re letting huge assets go all over the organization that have been trying to drive this new growth (like Steve Mann, who CIO wrote about today). If I were them, I’d look hard at their acquisition of Business Objects and aggressively push those folks to help steer them in the right direction. This should help them at least begin to tap into the brain (or the stem) and capture a whole new set of SAP users and a ton of money.

So, the $50 Billion question for SAP: Will you aggressively pursue a new growth strategy or stay the course?

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 imagine, since I go big always, that this was one of the big things that attracted me to Jive.

When Clearspace launched

It was after two years of heavy R&D. I remember calling tons of customers listened to their ideas, gathered requirements, and ultimately did a whole lot of visualizing of what a brand new, game-changing product would be like. In the end, it was a massive bet. Did we leave all our successful, profitable products in the dust and go with something new that didn’t even have a proxy in the market? That decision was made working closely with our customers who even sat through countless user accepting tests to help us arrive at something remarkable. I remember how excited we were when CNET broke the story on the cover of News.com. Clearspace was a massive hit. It attracted a whole new level of customers, employees, partners and ultimately Sequoia who invested in our company . They loved our vision and believed the enterprise software landscape was ready for a change, too.

Today the vision becomes reality

With today’s launch of Jive SBS 3.0, we launch two things: (1) the largest enterprise software category since ERP, CRM, and messaging combined, and (2) a brand new solution that finally brings the vision of uniting customers, partners, and employees together to change the way they work with each other.

With this release, Jive sets the course for the SBS category. You can read all about what’s new from our CEO, Dave Hersh. But let me share some other things that are or will be new (besides our product, company and website):

Social Capital

Ever been to a meeting when the CEO asks for the status of a project, initiative, the temperature of the company, the issues surrounding critical things? Those answers have always been a qualitative and a few people’s perspectives. With the SBS market, once companies have the know-how and the people connected, they can actually measure these things quantitatively. No more opinions, now it’s just facts. Expect a whole new set of management metrics, insight and productivity thanks to SBS.

Leadership

A social business needs new leadership, not the same old “managers.” Remember when you were the expert? Now you’re not. You’re part of a team. And you should be a good coach. Get ready to be outdated really fast unless you learn new skills.

Social Process and Decisions

Now that SBS is the new inbox and employees are doing their work in it everyday, companies need a new way to make critical decisions and reinvent more effective processes for competitive advantage.

Accountibility

No more hiding behind the success of others. No more hemorrhaging of people know-how when tens of thousands walk out the door (did you see that our government “forgot” how to make Trident missles?). No more taking the credit.

The toothpaste is out of the tube

Don’t believe that SBS is the biggest enterprise category in 15-20 years? No problem. With every new category, there’s always the naysayers. There’s always the other vendors who see it as sprinkles they can pepper their unrelated apps with. These are all the normal ingredients for disruption. Just look into the social web and then into the workplace and you tell me: Is SBS the next big enterprise category?