It’s been a while since I’ve heard anything out of Moxie Software, an enterprise social software vendor with a strong emphasis on usability. But today an infographic produced by the company is doing rounds on Twitter, and has some interesting pieces of information. The infographic is based on survey data from Resources commissioned by Moxie.

The first section of the graphic looks at what features online community managers thought were most important. “Ability to post group messages” topped the list, followed by “ability to set up communities of interest.” Almost all the features here can be found in mailing list software – probably the oldest of old school social software.

Perhaps more interesting is the comparison of how “document centric” interfaces are perceived vs. “people centric” interfaces. Impressions of “people centric” interfaces were much better, and respondents said they were better able to use the key features mentioned in the first section. Coming from BoxWorks, where Box announced its document-centric collaboration platform will be integrated with Salesforce.com’s social platform Chatter, I found this very interesting.

Another interesting finding was how many people were interested in using enterprise social software for “ideation,” or idea generation. Several social software suites, including Moxie, Jive and Yammer have added idea management features, and companies like Spigit, Kindling and BrightIdea offer stand alone products for idea management. I think this remains an overlooked area of benefit for social software in the workplace.

Services Angle

A recent study by Prescient Digital Media in association with the IABC Research Foundation found high levels of dissatisfaction among users of social intranets. Toby Ward, president and CEO of Prescient Digital Media, concluded: “Too many organizations are relying on out-of-the-box SharePoint and free, open source solutions, with little thought or execution on the needs and requirements of the organization and its users.”

Considering how many social software solutions are available as hosted services, it should be much easier for enterprises to try several services and determine which best meet their needs. The data from Moxie provides a good starting point for considering the requirements of a good social collaboration tool.