Steve Ennen, Neighborhood America Director Of Business Development Interview

SNW INTERVIEW -- Sep 13 -- There’s good money in helping companies set up enterprise social networks. Here’s our interview with the Director of Business Development of Neighborhood America, Steve Ennen. Neighborhood America powers business social networks. - Mark Brooks

What is Neighborhood America’s founding story?
Neighborhood America’s founding story has a lot to do with the way this country has been able to communicate and change communication. In the late 1990’s, one of our co-founders, Kim Kobza had an epiphany about making things a little bit easier for government and people to come together and develop a concept where people could comment on their land use applications and interact more with the government. So through a mutual friend he found, our CTO and co-founder David Bankston, who was formerly with Lexus Nexus and together they built a solution that was one of the first software service operations in the country to enable public comment.

So by the time 9/11 rolled around, we had been working strongly with many municipalities and governments across the country including the Federal government. And 9/11, of course, was an event that changed all of our lives. In 2002 we built a system called Imagine New York. It was a way for people to comment and discuss the rebuilding of the World Trade Center area.

What are Enterprise social networks?
When we mention enterprise social network we’re talking about online collaboration and communication under the auspices of a particular brand.

Who are your clients?
Besides the Federal government and many public of the spaces, we work with Scripps and power the HGTV Rate My Space which has just been turned into a television show. We also work for RacingOne.com. We built a community of aficionados of NASCAR who get together and chat, blogs and post pictures. They can use it to meet people at races around the country. So that’s another powerful example.

Fox News is also a client. We also have CBS as a client powering many of their local CW stations’ regional competitions for America’s Top Pet and America’s Next Top Model. Omni Hotels is another one. Our client base is extremely diverse because we have the flexibility to offer diverse solutions.

Who would you regard as your closest competitors?
I don’t honestly know of any out there. We’ve become a very full service solutions provider, not just a technology vendor.

How does one benefit from being part of an enterprise network as opposed to a social network?
Probably the most important aspect of that is that the conversation is focused. The interaction is clear, it is amongst people who desire to work together and it’s amongst those who find a greater good in their communication. One of the important aspects about enterprise system is that there should be some parameters around which people participate. That helps keep the focus. You’re never going to control the conversation but you want to be able to facilitate the conversation. That is not going to happen in those wide spread multi-interest areas. That’s the thing people gain a lot of value when they’re involved and engaged in a discussion that means something to them and that’s, what I believe, is the key or the differentiator.

And you target the advertising…
Absolutely you can target the advertising. Advertisers can participate in different ways. They may find new ways to become part of the conversation, be invested in that conversation, and be invested in the brand that are facilitating these conversations.

What does the future hold for Neighborhood America?
We believe its going to be bright and prosperous. As more and more people start to understand the power of these networks and become a little bit more sophisticated in their use, then the level of value of these communities and networks will grow. People can all connect and talk and increase the knowledge exponentially across the globe and I think that’s at a point where we’re now starting to see some of this happen. People find a phenomenon; they try to put it in a can and repackage it and sell it on a mass scale. That’s usually an initial mistake. That’s another thing that makes enterprise networks so much more important – the fact that they are individual, yet they are global. We intend to help lead and be partners with as many of the people as we can to make this evolution move quickly and efficiently forward.