David Mario Smith is founder and principal analyst at Inflow Analysis. Mr. Smith is a Gartner veteran of over 16 years and an IT industry professional with 20 years of experience in the collaboration and workplace technology markets, having helped thousands of enterprises with their collaboration and workplace strategies. Mr. Smith’s career spans from being a senior analyst at Gartner to research director and lead analyst at Aragon Research.
As a collaboration analyst, one of the most frequently asked questions I get from organizations is, "What apps or tools should we be evaluating?" I always respond with a follow-up question, "Well, what...
At the very heart of all the buzz surrounding “big data” and artificial intelligence (AI) lies a universal truth: Information is the critical asset of every organization. Information flows...
Increasingly, business strategies across many industries are shifting to become more customer-centric than ever. At the same, there is tremendous market consolidation between customer relationship management...
There is a new crop of collaboration providers who are challenging and disrupting the status quo. Incumbent vendors have had to shift their focus and address the emerging trends of APIs, artificial intelligence...
As enterprises are faced with a plethora of choices for digital workplace technologies, it is important to focus on improving people’s experiences and leveraging tools to help get their work done....
Even after all these years, organizations still lack a consistent focus on improving employee experiences and engagement. Given that this is directly tied to customer experiences, it should be a no brainer...
In light of the recent focus on customer experience (CX) and customer journey mapping, enterprise leaders in sales and marketing have to refocus their strategies around multiple customer journeys and across...
I’ve been doing a lot of research lately on the shift to conversational experiences as a way to enhance customer and employee engagement. We are witnessing enterprise communications and collaboration...
There is a crisis in enterprise communications and collaboration—due in large part to the overwhelming technology and application silos that cause a lot of user complexity and confusion. Enterprise...
In the collaboration space, and specifically in the unified communications and collaboration (UCC) market, we get so caught up on our own jargon, technical terms, naming conventions, and identifying categories...
Information is indeed the lifeblood of every organization, along with the people who retain and transmit that information. We have established that information is an asset and should be managed as such...
Every organization is now a digital business. Its information is an asset and its digital currency. Business leaders responsible for managing enterprise information have to focus on its life cycle, which...
The digital workplace encompasses many technologies that require enterprises to focus on a sound, holistic strategy, which should include synergy between the technologies required to support key business...
We hear so much discussion about the digital workplace and digital transformation that we’ve made it into some sort of business destination. However, we forget about the bridge called "experience"...
I’m currently working on an upcoming report on the impact of artificial intelligence on collaboration, and we’re seeing a growing trend toward what I’m calling "intelligent collaboration."...
As a technology industry analyst, I cut my teeth and traditionally wrote on technology issues. I’ve covered workplace collaboration for years and can geek out with the best of them. However, the...
The state of collaboration has forever been changed—no longer is the technology provider determining what capabilities people need. People are determining this for themselves, dictating what capabilities...
As we enter the final stages of 2015, I reflect upon what has been happening in the collaboration space. We’ve seen the emergence of mobile collaboration and its impact on how people work. The workforce...
The world we live in is becoming richer and more interactive, and the workplace is no exception. Partly because consumer devices include video and mobile networks that do a better job of transmitting...
I’ve covered collaboration technology for many years now and have also been focusing on the people aspect of collaboration as well. After all, collaboration is between people. One thing many enterprises...