River Software

see above

Pros

The ease of utilizing the River software is great. The service is outstanding. While we are early on in the process we've been very pleased with all that River has provided us to date.

Cons

Nothing yet. We are launching soon which will be the real test.

The benefits of having a dedicated mentoring platform are flexibility, a strong end user experience especially for mentor circles (though I think it leans heavily in that direction and not as much for 1:1) and world class customer service from the top down

Pros

I love the support I get from the team at River. My company has a number of unique mentoring programs and I'm able to incorporate my account specialist into every aspect of the design and implementation process.

Cons

With more companies trying to quantify the value of mentoring, I think it's important that River work on both their reporting and survey tools to be more competitive with other companies that are in the same technology space. I've seen demos recently where their reporting capability makes it very easy to "tell the story" of mentoring, and that's not something I have at River right now.

Developed mentoring relationships that are designed to improve specific skills such as becoming a team leader for example. I work for a company that employs over 35000 around the globe, and I have been able to create and maintain great relationships thanks directly to this software. This fact, in the end, improves productivity by maintaining a healthy work environment.

Pros

It is very user friendly, fun to browse around look at people's profiles and excellent customer service!

Cons

It is not cheap but the cost is absorbed by our company and it allows up to 1000 users. I can't think of anything negative to say and if your company decides to buy it, it is a great tool to connect workers in a big company and maintain a high level or morale.

This is a wonderful program. The company is constantly updating and making improvements. It is very easy to navigate and easy to understand.

The river has been an excellent partner for Sodexo since 2008. They make it possible to reach thousands of people who otherwise would not be able to connect in our large, decentralized organization in both 1:1 and virtual community relationships. They have consistently provided high levels of client satisfaction and their thought leadership has helped shape and evolve our mentoring strategy over the years. I recommend River if you are implementing, sustaining or evolving a mentoring program in your organization.

The Community Manager Certification Program uses River for collaboration opportunities within our learning groups. They are able to share comments, references, polling, and other learning experiences with ease. The platform provides the social learning aspect of the program that we could not use on other platforms. Collaboration is the highest goal set for the program. Using River as our platform allowed us the opportunity to win Silver from the Brandon Hall Awards in "Best in Collaborative Learning" category.

Pros

The interface and all its features for collaboration.

Cons

Scrolling when we try to find someone's post.

Advice to Others

River is a great tool to encourage social learning in a trusted space.

As our organization continues to use River in new ways, the River team works along side us to create the right experiences for our users. I value the partnership and innovative collaboration.

Pros

Matching people into mentoring partnerships with ease in a large organization.

Cons

Updating system for active and inactive employees

River has been amazing to work with as a partner. Every encounter has left me feeling like they are invested in helping us find the right solution for us and are not just interested in selling us any solution. Their team is collaborative, flexible and very responsive.

The River software has made getting involved in mentoring, as a Learner and Advisor, very easy in my organization. River offers support and ideas that allows us to continually improve our social learning/mentoring process.

We've been using River's various versions of mentoring software since 2008; their workflow has streamlined with simple but elegant features for our users; with state of the industry mentoring operational excellence processes and support.

Pros

Simple to use, excellent product and process support from the River team

Cons

Although it is excellent software; don't think it totally runs by itself; there still is a need to set strategy, and support the process internally.

Advice to Others

River demonstrates they are committed to being an industry leader in the social learning/mentoring venue.

Our experience with River software was one of working with a trusted partner.
They were great to work with and delivered on every promise that they made. They also went out of their way to help our program succeed by investing in software development that enabled us to track real-time user experience (xAPI).
Their depth of knowledge in mentoring -- both formal and peer, is unmatched and this evident in the configuration of the River platform.
Anyone interested in developing a social learning program could do no better than to engage River Software.

Pros

Smart recommendations of content, people and groups based on competencies selected by the user.

Cons

Like any fully featured software program it can be a bit of challenge for end users to master.

Advice to Others

Be sure to check out the xAPI capability-- it offers a means to do robust analytics on social learning. I am not sure that its competitors have this feature.