How Jive took its IPO to the social sphere—in a big way

The enterprise social software provider was the first to have live social streaming on NASDAQ’s Times Square marquee, getting employees, customers, and others involved.

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Any company’s first day as a publicly traded entity on a stock exchange is a big deal. But Jive Software wasn’t content simply to present its initial public offering on Dec. 13. The company had to take it further.

From top to bottom, Jive’s IPO was a social event. The IPO’s architects used Jive’s social software to collaborate on the details of the event; executives used internal blogs to share information with employees; and customers, employees, and other interested folks shared in the celebration through seeing their tweets displayed on NASDAQ’s marquee in midtown Manhattan.

“Having somebody in Times Square look at the screen and see something they did is just so powerful and impactful,” says David Wicks, the vice president of NASDAQ OMX Group who oversees its Marketsite.

The buildup

One of the first and biggest concerns that any publicly traded company will have is whether internal communications about its offering are going to remain secure. Jive used its own software to make sure only the people who needed to know the most sensitive information knew it when talks started last July.

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