Alan Lepofsky, Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky has almost two decades of experience in the software industry. He help companies understand how to develop and/or implement collaboration solutions that help employees get their work done. Rather than evangelizing how social software needs to completely change the way people work, He prefer to focus on how organizations can improve their existing business processes by providing access to the colleagues, content and communities that can help people get their work done more effectively.

His main areas of research include:

- The evolution of communication technologies, from email, to chat, to social networking. Understanding where new methods make sense, and equally as important where they don't.

- Improvements in the creation, sharing, and storage of content (documents, presentations) and richer forms of media such as podcasts, videos, scorecards, and mashups.

- Locating and sharing subject matter expertise. Helping employees, customers, and partners share information and operate more effectively with collective knowledge.

- Bringing aspects of the video game world to business. For example, defined missions (projects), with milestones, goals, and rewards. Ranking and reputation. Teamwork.

- Bringing all of the above together in ways where the tools can help people discover the content and people they need to get their job done. Call it Web 3.0 or Semantic Web, or whatever new buzzword you want, but this is where many of these concepts converge.

Specialties:

Strong communication skills. He is a frequent speaker at industry events, customer briefings, and interviews with press and analysts.