Despite (or maybe because of) the vast discussion on whether this is just a buzzword, a lipstick on a pig, or even a bad practice for BPM, I have to say that I see a continuously rising attention on Social BPM.
This is demonstrated by a huge amount of posts by prominent BPM practitioners (see also the most recent one by Jim Sinur of Gartner), presentations at events (see for instance Alec Sharp‘s speech at BPM Europe, Keith Swenston’s and Bill Johnston’s at the Social BPM Forum, and many others), specific scientific events on the topic (e.g., the BPMS2 workshop at the BPM conference), and even research project focusing on it (such as the yet-to-start BPM4People project funded by the EU Commission).
Several vendors integrate some kind of social BPM practices in their tools now (Appian, IBM BlueWorks Live, and so on).
However, I was quite surprised when I got an invitation to join the Tweet Jam on Social BPM promoted by WfMC and Future Strategies publisher.
If you want to join, the discussion is scheduled for June 21, 2011 @ 11.45-12.45 EDT and will be moderated by Clay Richardson from Forrester Research.
The discussion will be on the challenges facing business and IT practitioners in understanding work, planning and collaboration under the impact of Social Technology.
We still have to see whether this rising sun will bring light to the BPM field, or if it will fail in its objectives. My 2 cents: people still need to understand which are those objectives.
But my bet is that Social BPM has some power and can avoid BPM “To wear that ball and chain” forever.
To keep updated on my activities you can subscribe to the RSS feed of my blog or follow my twitter account (@MarcoBrambi).
