Enterprise Social Networking: It Has Value!

There is a constant battle sage brewing over the concept of including an enterprise social networking application within organizations. Top level executives have been arguing whether it has any real business value and IT departments claim it brings about too many security risks. As the new generation of young executives rise into power, social networking apps like Facebook, Plaxo, and Google will become increasingly popular collaboration tools in the enterprise.

I came across this article on ZdNet, which includes a thought from Harvard Business School professor Andrew McAfee. He explains why certain Enterprise tools are still not being accepted in organizations:

"We need to keep in mind that most E2.0 tools are new, and that their acceptance depends on shifts in perspective on the part of business leaders and decision makers, shifts for which the word ‘seismic’ might not be an overstatement. Enterprise 2.0 tools have no inherent respect for organizational boundaries, hierarchies, or job titles. They facilitate self-organization and emergent rather than imposed structure. They require line managers, compliance officers, and other stewards to trust that users will not deliberately or inadvertently use them inappropriately. They require these stewards to become comfortable with collaboration environments that “practice the philosophy of making it easy to correct mistakes, rather than making it difficult to make them” as Jimmy Wales has said. They require, in short, the re-examination and often the reversal of many longstanding assumptions and practices. It is not in the least disrespectful or contemptuous of today’s managers to say that it will take them some time to get used to this."

Out of all Web 2.0 tools, social networking still receives the most skepticism. In our previous post we discuss how companies like BEA have incorporated a Facebook-like social solution to ease collaboration and sharing of documents, and how Salesforce.com has launched its social networking platform Ideaforce to share ideas on product development. If companies like these can find value in enterprise networking, other businesses are missing out on its benefits. Clearly, organizations are slowly catching on, but not quick enough...

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Enterprise 2.0, add it to your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch:

http://enterprise-3.blogspot.com/

Are you tired of the applications on Facebook?

A solution has finally come. In this post at ReadWrite Web, they point out a new application they’ve found so you can block all application requests except friends, groups and event notifications. At Ignoreall.com, after installing their application there will be more requests to join the vampire group or join the virtual cocktail party. Now your professional Facebook profile is one click closer.

We’re getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Enterprise 2.0, add it to your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch:http://enterprise-3.blogspot.com/

More on Alfresco

Last year, we posted about Alfresco and their use of Facebook as a wiki. See that post here at our old blog. In a recent post at Mashable, they discuss how this company is growing. They just announced that they received an extra $9 million in funding from SAP Ventures, as well as funding from Accel Providers and Mayfield which totaled $19 million.

What makes Alfresco different from all the other companies trying to bring Web 2.0 to the business world is that they work with everyday applications already in the office. They focus on brining new application to Facebook (like creating document collaboration tools for the platform) and Google. This is shows that they want to bring these applications to the enterprise now. Not in three years with a new program.

Alfresco’s business is picking up, according to CEO and founder John Powell. They’ve already had clients that include top ten investment banks, Electronic Arts, KLM and H&R Block.

We’re getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Enterprise 2.0, add it to your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch:http://enterprise-3.blogspot.com/

Enterprise 2.0 on the Move!

It brings shear satisfaction when I get word that companies are beginning to embrace the Web 2.0 movement, despite some of its skepticism it has received regarding office efficiency within the past couple of months. While reading CIO Today’s article we can still see that many businesses still block access to social networking sites like Facebook that hinder business development and effective collaboration between employees. The informality of blogs, social networking sites, and wikis attract the brightest employees and maximizes internal communications.

Fortunately, we see giants like Gartner, an I.T. research firm, embrace Web 2.0 tools and applications. This is how Jorge Lopez, industry research chief at Gartner, defines a business in the new age:

"A high-performance workplace combines technologies, processes and management so workers can create more value. This area integrates multiple technology perspectives, including collaboration, information access, content and knowledge management, messaging, portals, e-learning and productivity tools."

With the growing number of young executives entering corporate America, Web 2.0 tools will become more and more accepted as time goes on, especially with industry giants such as IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, and now Gartner making bold moves. The key is to keep employees motivated, and that means giving them full access to exploit blogs, wikis, and social networking sites.

Facebook evolving

In a new article on CNet, the divulge that Facebook is making several changes to the way they operate in the first quarter of 2008.

They are:
-- Friend list privacy controls
-- Facebook in new languages
-- Blasting messages to groups with more than 1,000 members

The business world has been waiting for the first change. Now, will this propel Facebook up the list of preferred networking sites for professionals?

The move for Facebook to create more languages is obvious. Obviously, it is used around the world, but now that they are creating a new way for users to read in their own language, membership should climb.

And finally, Facebook will add messaging a group with more than 1,000 members. It will serve a need that business lookers have been searching for, the ability to spread news and communicate as a whole group.

In a post in December, we wrote about Serena Software and how they use Facebook as their corporate intranet. So now, we might not only see Facebook as a way to network with other professionals, but we will begin to see corporations use it on a daily business. With the ease of collaboration that Facebook provides with groups and communication, mass messaging employees will now be possible. Will this encourage companies to adapt Facebook, not to mention that now employees will be able to separate their personal life from their professional life, as well as the ability to message everyone together?

Facebook moves one step closer

Yesterday, Facebook released its latest improvement, the ability to sort your friends into different categories. In its aspiration to become more usable by businesses, the new lists that you can sort friends in to can now be easily mass messaged, send invitations and a few other things.

ReadWrite Web analyzes the change in a recent post. They bring up the very important part of privacy yet again. Since Facebook was created for personal and private information, there may still be things on your page that you would prefer your coworkers and bosses didn’t know. I agree with ReadWrite Web that along with the groups, you should be able to tailor the information that each individual group is able to see. Maybe this will be Facebook’s next improvement. With each step the social networking site is taking, they are moving closer and closer into a world where people can network.

Enterprise Ban on Social Networking: When Will it End?

In this previous post we mentioned to think twice before deploying a social networking platform in your enterprise. The truth of the matter is that half of all businesses that use filters like Barracuda block sites like Facebook, Myspace, and LinkedIn. This latest article on ZdNet summarizes an organization’s main concerns in adopting a social networking strategy.

1. Potential damage from viruses or spyware
2. Drain on employee productivity
3. Bandwidth issues and potential liability exposure

Obviously there is some value to social networking sites, business professionals are already communicating with each other on LinkedIn, a business oriented social networking site. Employers should think of ways to include this form of communication into their business strategy, instead of putting a ban on it.

There is a challenge that exists in this day and age, organizations must find a way to boost employee productivity while fostering out any harmful intrusions. Over time, this dilemma will be solved. After all, organizations initially restricted all web access because employers thought that workers would spend all day shopping and surfing inappropriate sites. Businesses that deploy the best means of collaboration and communication will ultimately succeed in the end. In the future, I can not see any Fortune 500 company lasting without making an investment in a social networking platform.

Facebook: Is it Right For Your Enterprise?

Steve Richards’s latest blog entry argues whether or not Facebook’s social networking application has real business value. He does not see Facebook’s technology as an enterprise solution, but Facebook continues to change with each growing day. We all remember how Facebook was geared towards college students in its initial launch, but now we have experienced a shift in registered users, which includes many business executives within the enterprise.

We’ve recently posted an entry highlighting Serena Software and their announcement to start using Facebook as their corporate intranet. Facebook provides real business value in this sense because it improves collaboration efforts ten fold. Facebook’s platform is completely free and allows for flexible open communication within the Enterprise. Even though Facebook has not enhanced all aspects of the business networking experience, it is well on its way to tackle all obstacles. LinkedIn already allows users to post questions to intake expertise information, it’s only a matter of time before Facebook will follow suit with other business networking sites like Xing and LinkedIn.

Salesforce and Social Networking

The latest article on eWeek describes how Salesforce.com recently added a new service to allow customers to add other Salesforce.com customers as friends, very much like LinkedIn and Facebook. Finally customers, partners, and application developers will have access to different ideas all over the world. Many business gurus would agree that the best business ideas derive from customers. Well, this new application platform allows customers to collaborate on the status of leads, as well as objects developed as individual customizations. How will competitors like Netsuite and SugarCRM react to the latest Enterprise 2.0 trends and applications? It appears as if Salesforce.com is beginning to view the bigger picture. Quite an interesting read…

More on Serena Software

After posting this morning about Serena Software allowing their employees to use Facebook, I decided to find out more information about it. At ZD Net, Jo McKendrick wrote this blog. The entire intranet was replaced with Facebook. McKendrick believes that the traditional intranets are expensive, stiff and hierarchal, while Facebook is free, flexible allows open communication. By utilizing the new apps features and creating groups, the flow of information throughout the company is trackable and manageable. It has also proved for better communication between managers and employees, even with the open door policy at Serena.

Social Networking in Business: Nick Carr’s Opinion

Recently on the Rough Type blog, Carr puts a different spin on the benefits of using social networking in a business environment. The things that really gel a company can not really be captured in today’s email systems and talks around the water cooler. Instead, he believes that opening up to Facebook or MySpace allows the opportunity for employees to fully communicate, and all of the information is in one spot. Further more, it’s all available in one spot and can be used in the future by other employees. Also, in the comments to this blog, someone posted a link to an article about how Serena software has started to use Facebook for a hour a week world wide. Would your company be able to do this? Why or why not?

Facebook: Is there enough room for your business contacts and friends?

Do you already have a personal Facebook page before it was opened up to everyone? Continuing with the Facebook and LinkedIn debate, how do you keep your personal profile separate from the business profile on Facebook? Some professionals would rather use Facebook than LinkedIn. Jim Rapoza of EWeek wrote about this problem in his recent blog. With the one-size fits all mentality of these websites, Facebook occasionally does not work in both the business setting versus a personal one. How do you deal with your Facebook profile?

Taking the Customer Seriously

Organizations are slowly shifting their train of thought to truly understand the customers’ needs. An example of this is the new Alfresco Facebook Platform mentioned in the previous post which allows for customers and employees to interact and share content. HP is currently brainstorming ways to allow end users to merge with the organization using a variety of Web 2.0 applications.

This latest blog highlights some of HP’s ideas on incorporating customer input to improve enterprise innovation. Phil McKinney, CTO of the Personal Systems Group of HP mentions:

”’We were missing the DNA of an organization that had its finger on customer desires”

Other enterprise organizations like Dell, Xerox, and Sun have already jumped on the bandwagon, finally taking customers seriously. It will be interesting to see how these prominent organizations will tweak Enterprise 2.0 applications to allow for customer interaction within the next couple of months. After all, a happy customer is a repeat customer…

Part Two: Reactions to the future success of Facebook and LinkedIn

Facebook and LinkedIn are two very important mediums to social connection in the business world. I think many of these bloggers fail to remember that Facebook has been around since 2004.

Business Week in March of 2006 wrote an article on the importance of Facebook to college students and how it is targeted towards:

The leading social networking sites are an increasingly popular form of communication among college students because of the tools offered by each site including photo posting, messaging, blogs and friend lists which gel perfectly with the digital lifestyle habits of today’s college students. Facebook adds an additional element of exclusivity for college students since a user needs to have an “.edu” email address to register.

It was created as a social network for college students. Therefore, many of the aspects on the site were developed to target the interests of the 18 to 23 year olds who joined to network and keep friends up to date on what’s happening in their personal lives with their profiles. According to TechCrunch in March 2005, 85% of college students then had a profile on Facebook.

As stated by Forbes, only within the past year has Facebook been opened up to anyone without a “.edu” address. The basic layout of Facebook has not changed since then, but there are many little changes that have taken place. I feel that Facebook sees the problems that are discussed in many of the blogs, and the opportunities that a business population can provide and are working to fix this. They also see that their current audience is moving into the professional world. They see the opportunity that is available to be the social networking site for professionals, and are aiming to keep their current audience and expand into the future. On the contrary, LinkedIn was specifically created for the purpose of networking for businesses. They have the competitive edge in captivating the business audience, but I have a feeling that Facebook knows that they have an untapped market and will aim to capture this audience.

So who will be around in ten years? I believe it will be the site that truly captures the interest of the generation who is entering the workforce now. Today’s entry level college graduates are already comfortable with Facebook; will this give Facebook the edge. Will this prove to be the edge? LinkedIn is built to support business networking, will this foster their edge? What system do you prefer? Whose future do you think is leading the networking into the future?

Part One: Facebook vs. LinkedIn…..What does the future have in store for the success of the sites?

The value of Facebook is increasing by the moment. Microsoft believes it, they now own a part of it. As the business world adapts to Facebook, Facebook will make the necessary changes to adapt to it. In Matt Asay’s latest blog, he discusses the impact Facebook has recently had in the workings of his business life. From fixing problems to learning more about the personality of your customers, Facebook can provide vast amount of business information that has been previously unavailable. A lot of employees are already communicating via Facebook, companies should find a way to incorporate this platform into their business systems.

However, Facebook is facing a major competitor in the business world, LinkedIn. In Bernand Lund’s latest post, he wrote about how he has found that LinkedIn can provide him connections that would otherwise never be found. He can specifically contact mass amounts of people, all interested in the same topic, as opposed to Facebook, where mass messages are sent to your entire contact list. Also, more of his business contacts have a profile on linked in.

Among the major problems with LinkedIn, there may be an alterior motive by the sales force that has joined LinkedIn to sell. If LinkedIn becomes a new way of selling, many will turn away and focus on another site where they can network with out receiving tons of sales pitches. However, this can come with benefits. If you business is out there, someone will find you and your business will be the perfect fit. You will make money and potentially find a loyal customer that you would have never otherwise found.

LinkedIn: This is how we do it

In a previous post I mention Dion Hinchcliffe’s post regarding Facebook and its strategy to open up its API to 3rd party application developers. Now I come across a great post on NY Times’ blog, Bits, with highlights of an interview with the CEO of LinkedIn, Dan Nye.

It highlights that while LinkedIn will be looking to incorporate external developers into their site, the focus is about the right applications for their audience:

“We have no interest in doing it like Facebook with an open A.P.I. letting people do whatever they want,” Mr. Nye said. “We’re not going to have people sending electronic hamburgers to each other.”

It goes on to describe their strategy:

So LinkedIn will have to approve any company that wants to tap into its system. Mr. Nye says he is looking for two kinds of applications. First, there are deals that enable LinkedIn members to tap into their connections in other places, for example, while using applications like Salesforce.com. Second, some applications will be allowed to add features to LinkedIn’s own site. Mr. Nye offered, as an example, a module connected to a trade show or conference that integrated travel planning and other features.

After reading this of course we all have to wonder, who really has the best strategy for business users, Facebook or LinkedIn? Clearly, LinkedIn is focused exclusively on the business user, but will this more controlled access provide the type of applications that its users want? More importantly, will it happen soon enough?

It’s definitely too early to see who will be the ultimately winner of the hearts and minds of business users, but as an avid user of both, I’ll certainly be watching closely. What are your thoughts on each of these strategies, and who do think will ultimately appeal to business users?

Facebook and Portal 2.0, Are We There Yet?

I was not particularly surprised when I read Dion Hinchcliffe’s post on his Enterprise Web 2.0 blog on ZDNet. The number of articles and blog postings describing the ascendancy of Facebook are just too many to list here, but where I do agree with Dion is that Facebook’s strategy to expand its value by opening its platform to 3rd party application developers gives its growing audience so many more options to develop their experience in many directions internal developers at Facebook could ever think of.

It’s amazing to think that

Facebook currently has an entire category of business applications with over 227 different applications offered today, none of them built by Facebook itself.

Dion goes on to stress that while there is a growing sector of Facebook applications geared to the corporate user, many large organization are still unsure of the value of integrating with the platform:

But it’s abundantly clear that this phenomenon isn’t well understood or appreciated yet by most mainstream businesses, particularly large established ones that often take a parochial view of creating their own destination sites instead of going to where the audience is today. Despite the rise of widgets that spread the presence of a Web site or application to the far corners of the Internet, the mass dynamics of social networking sites has so far almost completely fallen outside of the imagination of the marketing, advertising, sales, CRM, and other departments in the traditional business world.

Naturally, businesses by their very nature are risk-averse and have to consider what the potential upside is then simply ever-increasing levels of collaboration. The focus of creating better means of internal collaboration has reached a tipping point that many businesses are seriously considering new platforms and applications to support this. But how do you incorporate something as unwieldy as integrating, even narrowly, with Facebook? How do you manage the flow of information exchange, assure its value, and then its dissemination to the right individuals across an organization?


It seems to me that there is still so much evolution that will happen on the broader social networking front with platforms like Facebook, before there is a definitive strategy for business and software developers to take full advantage of integrating. Nevertheless, it’s clearly something we all must be aware of and will be watching closely. I’m certainly going to find Jim Danenberg, PhD Candidate and Faculty at Western Michigan University’s discussion on SOA, Collaboration, Web 2.0, and Portals – Building Blocks for the New Work Environments a great forum to hear how others are following this trend and hear how some are taking their steps in the arena.