Bantam Live

At the core of Bantam Live is the real-time activity stream, which is all about the sharing of time, being together in the moment of business activity, integrating business apps/workflows/data, and being able to instantly interact with co-worker activity. The stream has significant value beyond the asynchronous sharing of a web page or file via, say, email. With this in mind we introduce today a new design tweak that'll give you a window view into the future evolution of Bantam Live.

Today's design tweak (in the magnified stream item above) doesn't need much explaining, and that's the point when users see this visual enhancement for an updated business object in the stream. Now, when a user modifies a deal setting, it'll display with augmented meta-data in the stream about a change to a business object, instead of only text narrative. In some instances it'll be with graphical icons, as shown. So instead of text-heavy "Bill Jones created the deal XYZ and assigned a value of X with a close date of Y and a probability of Z" the updated items will now display the meta info in a way that's easy to skim to get the essentials. Moreover, we've added some small green/red icons for up/down on certain modifications to a deal, such as a change deal amount or probability percent. Not only do these meta-updates of deals in the stream quickly provide useful information to a sales manager and colleagues; it also fosters team cohesion and sense of purpose that's motivating as well as informative.

"Information silo" is a pejorative term in enterprise software, and it's something that everyone says must be eliminated through "connectivity" and "data integrations." Maybe it's some of the bulky, dull (gray comes to mind) enterprise software itself that ought to be eliminated. How fitting that a towering silo from a farm is the metaphor.

When we think of modern web application software, connecting lumbering silos doesn't come to mind. In Bantam Live, for instance, native integrations in various modules (with permissions) allow users to see and interact with information from within and outside their organization or workgroup and connect with people across the web, as well as third-party services. Outside is in, inside is out. It's as open and fluid as the airy design created by some of the great Modernist architects in homes with walls of glass.