Since the creation of Facebook, Myspace, and other similar websites, the popularity of social networking has boomed across the population. These websites revolutionized the way people network and socialize with each other. With such a rapid growth in popularity, it is only logical that organizations would find a way to harness the power of these websites to improve their cultures, productivity, and networking skills.
Corporate social networking software has been around for a while, but not until recently has it started to gain popularity. The chain of communication starts with face to face, and then moves to phone conversations, then to emails, then to blogs, and now to enterprise social networking software. (Liu, 2009) Organizations find that using enterprise social networking software to share work and ideas is advantageous over plain email. It allows the employees to share unstructured work much easier and encourages them to help each other when problems arise. (Thompson, 2009) These features also save time and increase productivity by cutting out the transportation time that it would take to walk a hard copy of a report to someone's office. With the enterprise social networking software, people can review each other's work from any computer. (Thompson, 2009) It is estimated that by 2013, the market for enterprise social networking software will be around $1.5 billion.
Although there is plenty of enterprise social network software available, the three main platforms were created by Microsoft, Google, and Cisco. Microsoft's creation, Microsoft SharePoint, has been a big player in this software category. Its main benefit is that it is designed specifically for Windows machines and it also allows the users to create online communities for their organizations, enabling them to participate in social networking. (Thompson, 2009) Google created software called Google Wave, which is still in the beta phase. This software will allow users to create a shared space where they can share a multitude of different kinds of documents and files. (Thompson, 2009) Cisco's software is called WebEx. Currently, WebEx is split up into three separate products, which all allow user to participate in online networking and collaboration. (Thompson, 2009) In addition to all the software currently available, some organizations have developed their own, in-house enterprise social networking software.
Clearly social networking software used in corporations and organizations is becoming more and more popular. As this area of the software world continues to develop, I believe that it will eventually dominate the way organizations communicate and produce work. This could lead to much better productivity and efficiency across the board.
What is the Current State of ESN?
Overview:
Now that companies have seen the impact of social networking websites including Facebook and Twitter, enterprises are now looking to capitalize on this phenomenon. Companies are attempting to utilize this idea of social networking and incorporate into their internal practices with a business focus. According to a report released by Forrester Research, companies are expected to spend more than $4.6 billion on enterprise social networking by 2013 (Watson, 2009). Unlike Facebook and MySpace where these social networking websites are purely for personal-use, corporations are trying to use the idea of social networking with bit of a twist. Corporations are more interested in using social networking with a business focus. In other words, they want to provide a medium where employees can communicate with their fellow coworkers, share ideas, work on projects etc. Therefore, companies have taken this idea and are trying public resources that are available and some have actually created their own social networking application in-house.
Specific Examples:
In fact, Lockheed Martin was one of the very first corporations to use a public social networking application; however, it failed because of various issues concerning proprietary information. As a result, Lockheed Martin created their own internal social networking application called "Unity. (Messmer, 2009). Unity combines blogging, Wiki functions, personal pages and group forums that glitter with the kind of multimedia that keeps youthful employees engaged (Messmer, 2009). This social networking application is seen as a positive outcome, now that a strict policy has been placed and can be controlled by the internal environment. Through this application Lockheed believes it will improve project interaction throughout the company. In addition program manager Shawn Dahlen says, "One of the main reasons for diving into social networking for business is that 50% of our workforce will retire in 10. We have a lot of folks we need to hire in. They grew up with these tools. These recent college graduates aren't particularly attracted to meetings, e-mail or PowerPoint slides, he added (Messmer, 2009)." Therefore, it is obvious that companies are trying to accommodate the upcoming workforce by incorporating modern technologies that today's society is comfortable using.
Another company that is currently adapting an enterprise social networking application is Novell. Novell is ready to begin beta testing its Pulse enterprise social-networking and collaboration suite (Perez, 2010). Pulse will allow co-workers to collaborate in real-time as well as setup employee profiles. In addition, this application will also feature a unified inbox, as well as integration with Google's Wave application, which combines features from e-mail, instant messaging and document collaboration (Perez, 2010).
As you have read, many companies are beginning to build on the Web 1.0 services such by adding Web 2.0 features such as blogging, social networking customer relationship management, etc (O'Reilly, 2005). Companies believe that by adapting these modern tools, it will increase business efficiency, internal and external communication, as well as collaboration (Kolakowski, 2009)
Technology
Evaluation of Existing OTS/OSS Alternative Packages:
There is currently a software package from Liferay that is called Liferay Social Office. This software integrates with Microsoft Office to add a level of transparency to file sharing. Files are automatically updated whenever they are saved on the desktop. Social Office has user profiles similar to those of "Linked-in". The software lets users have a personal blog as well as forums for collaborations on thoughts and ideas over the entire network. A calendar is included with the software as is an instant messenger for quick access to other online users. Wiki's are able to be created about subjects of business on the social network and updated by other users of the network. Enterprises such as Cisco and even Penn State University Hershey are using this software for their networks (LifeRay).
Jive is another software package that is used by enterprises for social networking. The latest build of Jive is SBS 4.0. Jive lets users collaborate on documents much like Google Docs does. Every user has a profile and can join groups and connect with other users of the same social network. Jive offers private storage online for backup of data within the social network. Blogs are available for individuals as well as groups to give progress updates and things of that nature. Users can tag their content for easier retrieval for their own and others use. Profiles are able to be monitored by administrators to help to avoid data leaks and unauthorized access. The software can be either licensed as a self hosted network or as a hosted SaaS network. Jive has a large language support base so that the social networking software can be used in many different countries without special development to connect between different social networks. Companies such as Nike, SAP, and Intel are using this software for their enterprise social network (Software).
MindTouch is another type of open source software for social networking of enterprises. It offers all of the previously mentioned features of the other two open source software, including SSL encryption support and database dashboards. Database dashboards would make it easier on the information systems administrator in the beginning of implementation as they would simplify the process of learning the new software. MindTouch is used by Cisco and Intel as well as the previous software packages. Harvard and Microsoft are a few more clients that use this software for social networking (MindTouch, MindTouch).
Cube Tree is social networking software that is open source and is completely free. Cube Tree is not as advanced as previously mentioned software and resembles sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Some features include Google doc and calendar integration. Twitter integration is also available, which at an enterprise level may be a security concern. Users have 140 characters for updates and can follow other user updates much like that of Twitter (Tree).
Evaluation of Additional Individual Technologies:
Drupal is a technology that allows for the building of customized social networking sites. A social network built on Drupal would need to be constructed from basics. Features like email and file integration would have to be created or found somewhere on the internet that someone else has already created so that the software could be implemented into the Drupal site. Software would be stored either at the enterprise or in a cloud computing model (Drupal).
Internally stored wikis would be another type of social networking platform for user editable information on items that have to do with the enterprise. Users would have to be registered on the network to be able to access the wiki. Wiki's are user created and user moderated for data accuracy. Wiki's can provide up to date information fast and due to the ability of all users being able to contribute. Software such as Dekiwiki can be used to create internal wiki's. Dekiwiki is created by MindTouch which was mentioned earlier as a provider of open source social networking solutions. A community site on the MindTouch webpage is the place you could find information and code for the implementation of an internal wiki (MindTouch, MindTouch Community Portal).
Looking forward
In Terms of SN Technologies:
Today, many people who are entering the work force have probably experienced a social networking site of some form or another whether it's MySpace, Twitter or Facebook, even YouTube was an earlier form of one. With their wild success of connecting people from all around the world it's no surprise that major companies saw that this could provide some sort of advantage for them. IBM, Cisco, Microsoft and Pfizer are a few of the companies currently with their own social networking site and it's time to see what it could bring them in the future.
Recent work examining Facebook use among college students makes a compelling argument that there is a link between use of the service and students' "social capital" (Steinfield, DiMicco and Ellison). The term social capital broadly refers to the resources that derive from the relationships among people in varying social contexts (Steinfield, DiMicco and Ellison). To access these resources in a successful way, several things will have to be implemented going forward. One of these is a user-friendly look. Users will more readily accept a system with an already familiar look like Facebook. Both IBM's newest version of Lotus Connections and one that was just released on Wednesday called Chatter for salesforce.com (Social media, Chatter and the future of enterprise computing) share the resemblance of Facebook. Business-specific applications will also be important. This could include CEO Blogs or a company wiki. Another is multiple communication systems because "a variety of communication channels within the enterprise social network can speed the pace of business and potentially lead to cost reductions (Kolakowski)". Security is another important factor to consider so that the employees will feel comfortable posting and sharing both personal and company information. Next, scalability in the network is key to account for a growth in employees and the large amount of data that will be created by the use of the social network. Enterprise social networking software will also need the ability to interact with legacy software as most large business do have some form of it. Finally, the enterprise social networking will need to deal with videos and other forms of multimedia like podcasts or PowerPoint. These along with others will be the focus of concern for future Enterprise social networking.
"2010 will see more emphasis on the employee, who after all performs the external functions listed plus all the others in the enterprise, so there is plenty of scope for value to be created (Pollinger)." This value will be created in the following ways according to Pollinger. With the huge increase of sales and use of smart phones, mobile phone applications will increase to access company intranets. Browser based working will become the norm with cloud computing taking over from internal server hosted applications. Employees will increasingly resort to using their own gadgets and technology where companies don't provide them with what they need to work and communicate efficiently. Technology will be implemented in the work place that will allow you to know whether someone is truly available at the moment to answer a question or take a call. There will also be an increase in video in the workplace for training or to show the work culture. Employee directories will disappear and form into social networks complete with expanded profiles and status updates through in house development or they will be replaced with social network type applications that are built into 'off the shelf' intranet products. With all of these changes there will be an increasing number of businesses who will development policies specific to social networking and incorporate them into the already existing Human Resources documentation.
In Terms of Relevance for Enterprises:
Looking further into the future of enterprise social networking, Gartner, Inc. revealed a few of their predictions. First being that e-mail will be slowly replaced by chat and posting on social networking sites. Secondly, current stand alone micro blogging will be replaced by the enterprises' own in house activity streams that include micro blogging. Next, over 70 percent of IT-dominated social media initiatives will fail due to the lack of IT training in providing social solutions. Gartner also believes that only 25 percent of enterprises will routinely utilize social network analysis to improve performance and productivity. This is due to the fact that they feel most people are reluctant to take a survey and will be put off by an automated system gathering data about their behavior.
It's clear to say that the workplace will be going through a lot of changes with how people will be able to communicate and share ideas. This will have its advantages with the possibility to access a secure work network both inside and outside of the workplace both on the PC and mobile devices. They will also have to have a lot of the aspects of current social networking sites if they are going to have any success or long term use because people are already comfortable with them and finally some current technologies like e-mail and micro blogging may be on the way out in another five to ten years.
