While toiling away designing harmon.ie’s next generation products, harmon.ie Chief Product Officer, David Lavenda, somehow finds the time to share his insights on information-related topics facing tomorrow’s business leaders. For his achievements, Lavenda has been recognized by CMSwire as a Contributor of the Year for 2020. CMSWire is a leading press outlet that focuses on the digital customer experience, the modern digital workplace, and the latest big data and information management practices; it is read by over 3 million influential digital and marketing executives every month.

Conferring the award, CMSwire managing editor Siobhan Fagan said, “David Lavenda is a one-man force working to make sure we learn from technology’s past. An international scholar for the Society for the History of Technology, David brings this same perspective — as well as his knowledge gained from his 30-odd years in the technology industry — to bear for the early-stage technology companies he advises.”

Lavenda’s 2020 articles explored timely information-related issues like ‘work from home’ challenges, how to get the most from new collaboration tools, and what is ‘really behind’ key Microsoft announcements. Some of his top articles for the year include the following:

• Why Salesforce Really Bought Slack
• SharePoint Syntex: The First Stop on the Road to Project Cortex
• What Positive Lessons Can We Take Away From Our Time Working From Home
• The Recent Spike in Collaboration Tool Adoption Doesn't Mean Productivity Spikes Too
• Microsoft’s Project Cortex Wants You to Hire a Knowledge Manager
• A New Generation of Collaboration Tools: Is it Really Different This Time?

“I am honored to be recognized by CMSwire as a 2020 Contributor of the Year,” said Lavenda. “With the devastating changes in the workplace caused by the COVID pandemic, 2020 introduced many new challenges related to information management. I hope my articles helped people and organizations cope with the new reality.”

One of Lavenda’s favorite topics is exploring what can be learned from experience with past information technologies, so we can better plan for the future. He is currently working on a project to explore the future of social media. As governments consider regulation, now is the time to ask, “is our current experience with social media different than past generations’ experience with revolutionary information innovations like the printing press, the telegraph, the television, or the Internet?”

This analysis is particularly timely because a similar process is playing out in the workplace, where ‘at home’ workers struggle to take advantage of new social networking technologies like Microsoft Teams. Have we been here before? What can we learn from the adoption pattern of past information innovations like email, the telephone, and even the fax, so we get it right this time? Insights from this research will be applied to building innovative products that help workers collaborate effectively… so they can be more productive wherever they work.”

In addition to his over 80 articles published in CMSwire, Lavenda has published over 200 articles in Fast Company, Business Week, VentureBeat, Entrepreneur, The Next Web, and other leading press outlets.