Don’t let the name fool you, Tomfoolery is a company with serious aspirations. They’re out to change enterprise software by making it more consumer-friendly. And they’ve made a splash in this space with the drop of their first product, the Anchor enterprise social collaboration app.
Any workplace depends on communication and teamwork. Anchor is a social network and collaboration platform that puts the end user experience in mind before the enterprise. Instead of loading the platform with rich features or project tools, the focus is on improving interaction to create happier, more effective employees. Anchor is a social network for work.
Why Is This Necessary?
Other social networks like Facebook are too casual or ill-suited for the workplace. More work-focused networks too rigid to encourage easy communication. Anchor looks to occupy a space somewhere in the middle. Clean and intuitive design, make it easy to navigate directories of teams and contacts. Features such as in-platform chats and photo sharing aim to facilitate relationship building. Even though Anchor allows for great flexibility moving files, allowing documents to travel between Box.com and Dropbox, between Anchor and Evernote, no mention is made of productivity tools.
The belief is that communication is the key to workflow and collaboration. Better results are the byproduct of solid, healthy relationships (personal and social). Rather than focus on time management, organization, or producing reports, Anchor trusts that fluid communication lets workers finish tasks with less resistance and accomplish more work.
For similar reasons, Tomfoolery is a mobile-first app lab, banking on the phone as the preferred means of communication. Anchor turns the phone into the digital water cooler, where people meet to talk about work and their private lives. Will businesses buy into adopting Anchor into the workplace, and allow Tomfoolery to eventually monetize?
Andreessen Horowitz, David Tisch, and other investors have already backed the company with $1.7 million in funding. Co-founder and CEO, Kakul Srivastava, previously worked on products at Adobe, Yahoo!, and Flickr. The team includes more AOL and Yahoo! veterans, which accounts partially for the strong financial support from former coworkers (Jerry Yang and Brad Garlinghouse). There’s good money riding on Anchor giving enterprise a consumer-friendly makeover.
Companies devote a lot of time and money to meetings, retreats, and a wide variety of team building efforts. Anchor may allow for colleagues to build company culture organically – with a beautiful software nudge.
Find the app on both Android devices and the iPhone, and look for it on Google Glass soon.
