Great Moments in Terrible Ideas: A Social Network for Your Company

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  cpseifer02/21/08 Report as spam
  1

  Social Networking as a means to catalog knowledge

  I have been thinking a lot about this lately. I think my organization would benefit greatly from an internal social networking site. Not so much for the reasons as outlined in this article. Instead, I think something like LinkedIn would be great. It would allow employees to catalog their knowledge and experience. This would allow other employees to easily identify and contact subject matter experts that could help them with problems. This would be especially useful for new employees who don't have many contacts within the company. A function like LinkedIn's answer section would also be useful. Not only would it help people resolve issues, it would help management further identify subject matter experts.
  
  Anyone know of such a software??

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  Jake Swearingen02/21/08 Report as spam
  2

  Social RE: Networking as a means to catalog knowledge

  Here at CNET, we have a neato email list called CNET Spam. While it's used primarily for the non-work goofy stuff -- basketball tickets, YouTube videos, kvetching about our permafailing vending machines -- people also use it to reach out for specialized knowledge. In general, I think something like a company-wide listserv is going to be much more useful and much less wasteful than a social network. It's easy to set up, doesn't (hopefully) require the time and attention of a moderator to run, and lets people use it quickly and when they need it. A social network requires one person to run it and all your employees will have to take the time to fill out a profile and participate. Employees can send a quick ping over a listserv -- keyboard shortcuts in Excel was a recent topic on CNET spam -- much easier. For more long-term HR needs, well, there's an HR department.
  
  I think people get hot and bothered because social networks sound sexy, but the time and effort required just to get them up and running isn't likely to produce many benefits. That said, it would be cool if a company could have an employee directory that listed specialized skills.

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  mkass02/22/08 Report as spam
  3

  Yes, their is a product out there.

  Actually, Sabre Holdings just announced that they have a package with American Express called cubeless, with is the first of its kind. If interested, please read:
  
  http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080220/20080220005866.html?.v=1
  
  or go to www.cubeless.com
  
  The benefits you mentioned regarding content and the ability to organize is a the heart of the product.

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  gregorytucker02/21/08 Report as spam
  4

  RE: Great Moments in Terrible Ideas: A Social Network for Your Company

  Great observations. I met on Facebook and old friend with whom I lost tough a decade ago. We quickly moved our conversations over to email and text messaging. Facebook is just a mess of application announcements, none of which have any value. I haven't found one yet that doesn't suck.

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  Jake Swearingen02/21/08 Report as spam
  5

  Facebook is pretty legit, I think

  I don't mean to bag on Facebook. It's great at what it does -- providing a way for millions to waste time at work playing online Scrabble. I just don't see why any company needs to spend the time and money to establish their own personal social network.

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  pt_boss@...02/21/08 Report as spam
  6

  RE: Great Moments in Terrible Ideas: A Social Network for Your Company

  I'm going to point out here that while true social networks in a business environment, there is room for using the tools to provide team communication streams. As an example, to be able to show the connections to project and functional teams gives a fairly quick insight into what people are working on and what expertise they bring to the table. My current experiment includes managing workloads of my PM team through task distributions in shared workspaces which is proving to be helpful for those who work to task lists, but less helpful for people who have more free-form or event-driven work.

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  russellr@...02/21/08 Report as spam
  7

  RE: Great Moments in Terrible Ideas: A Social Network for Your Company

  Seems to me you could fix all of that pretty easily.
  
  First up, either make the social-networking messaging system more flexible or simply integrate it with regular email. Problem 1 fixed.
  
  Secondly, your SN is not sticky, well build in reasons to come back. Put vital corporate info there in a private portal. Or add some regular cross-company competitions. Maybe replace your existing intranet portal with your SN app front-and-center. Content is king, after all.
  
  SN may be about cementing existing relationships, sure, but good search across an organisation can find people with the skills or experience you need. Build in some reward for tapping into new people out of your orbit and make it compelling.
  
  Seems SN could work inside a company if you tried hard enough.

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  keithc02/24/08 Report as spam
  8

  But why should you?

  russell wrote:
  
  
  
  While all of Russell's ideas could be made to work (though I am not sure about the feasibility of integrating it with email), I do feel they miss the point. Why should you do this? What is the business benefit of using SN that other information exchange mechanisms don't provide (or don't provide as well s they should)? If there isn't one, then there is no point introducing SN, no matter how sexy it is.

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  ryanhca02/21/08 Report as spam
  9

  not the expert...

  Making broad statements and generalizations is a great conversation starter, but don't couch them as coming from an expert. Social Networks on the web are only beginning to reach their potential, and corporate knowledge management has been an increasingly hot topic for the last 15 years. While you can definitely miss the mark with using certain "web 2.0" tools, but some, I think, offer true value to organizations.

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  richard.gardner@...02/22/08 Report as spam
  10

  The Point

  I think some of these replies are touching on the point of why social networking is a good idea in a corporate environment but nobody has stated it simply.
  
  One of the major problems with content management is that there is an overhead for controlling it, I haven't seen a content system yet that made it easy to control authors, viewers etc. The simple fact is most users don't understand group security or permissions, but Facebook does away with this, allowing people to do it themselves very intuitively. This is the value of social networking in a corporation and I'm extremely suprised none of the "experts" have bothered pointing this out yet. Perhaps they're all in marketing?

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  prao@...02/22/08 Report as spam
  11

  Content is a corporate asset

  Corporate communications frequently involve corporate content - assets that are created and managed by corporate investments and expenses - And controlling the flow of this content at the whims of individuals is a potential problem especially if those individuals are not working for the corporation a year later...
  
  The combination of social networking, disregard for content ownership, sensitivity and safeguards and the explositon of cheap mass storage devices is a corporate nightmare!

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  Eduardo2102/22/08 Report as spam
  12

  There are already functional internal social networks...

  They are called Communities of Practice. When they work, they gather common minded employees around well defined and measurable goals to improve knowledge creation and transfer on a specific domain.

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  mikesteadman03/24/08 Report as spam
  13

  Well Stated

  I wholeheartedly agree with the comment that many businesses refer to these types of networks as "communities of practice" (COPs). I'll add that many professional associations and member-based organizations have been using the collective "tools" of Social Networking for quite some time... only they weren't SN's - they were COP's.

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  paulhebert@...02/22/08 Report as spam
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  And the internet is a fad....

  I think experimenting with the social network thing is a great idea. The author of this post found three things that apply in the general world and applied them to a managed social network for a company and then delclared the idea dumb.
  
  I'm sure the author also thought the internet wouldn't have any application in business because it started as an academic tool and it was too messy.
  
  Come on - where's your spirit of adventure? Innovation is one of the biggest problems companies have and innovation is driven more by diversity of opinion (which social networks can enhance) than any other driver.
  
  In addition, social networks enable weak ties - which are another way ideas are propogated (especially ideas outside your normal sphere of consideration.) I totally disagree that social networks cement existing relationships - I use it to discover relationships.
  
  I agree the experiment will need oversight and management but what initiative doesn't. To declare it stupid and forecast its failure is closed-minded and short-sighted.

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  kianders02/22/08 Report as spam
  15

  I Agree! There is a legit use for social networking inside large companies.

  You would not duplicate all of the Facebook and MySpace tools & toys, but the idea behind the technology is absolutely useful as companies move toward Web 2.0. It's also useful for customer support, but more on that idea later.

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  mkass02/22/08 Report as spam
  16

  Yes, there is a product out there

  Yep, Sabre Holdings (parent of Travelocity) just announced a product called cubeless that does exactly that. See this Yahoo Finance article if interested:
  
  http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080220/20080220005866.html?.v=1
  
  or check out the cubeless website at
  
  www.cubeless.com

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  mhames02/22/08 Report as spam
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  Sharepoint is it's name

  I think the term Social Network is both useful and problematic. It's useful in
  that we understand what will be built. It will be a tool for connecting
  employees in a company that has multiple offices around the world (in the
  same way that IBM's island on Second Life is merely a tool).
  
  But a company network, with social network-like tools, is a great way to
  connect learning, ideas, projects, etc. We use Sharepoint. It has Wikis (an
  awesome business tool), blogs, shared workspaces, individual home pages,
  group home pages.
  
  The best way to describe it is a social network, but then that might also be
  the worst way to describe it. There are other options out there, including
  building your own from scratch. But we're no big enough for that.
  
  Matt.

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  PeggiD02/22/08 Report as spam
  18

  Sharepoing

  Wondered when someone would speak up about SP. MOSS 2007 is an especially promising tool on the path to improved Web 2.0 style communication capabilities.

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  nlaycoax02/22/08 Report as spam
  19

  Change the name to.....

  "Online Community" rather than social network. I am a member of Smaller Indiana and I am finding it VERY conducive to great business relationship building.
  
  If you create the aura that it is strictly for business, chances are, people will embrace that mindset, thus using it to find ways to be excited about their job and find ways to contribute to the success of the company.

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  dj5530802/22/08 Report as spam
  20

  say what you will... nature takes care of itself

  I think the puppy that begins running first, is the one that makes it to the dish first and grows to be the strongest. It really doesn't matter how it looks falling down as it learns.

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  david@...02/22/08 Report as spam
  21

  RE: Great Moments in Terrible Ideas: A Social Network for Your Company

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7257073.stm

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  annettew@...02/22/08 Report as spam
  22

  RE: Great Moments in Terrible Ideas: A Social Network for Your Company

  Are you kidding? Only companies that fail to incorporate the social element into their intranet design accenting the business intelligence element find that this is a terrible idea. Add a little personality, and social networking behind the genius engineer and you create a community willing to share ideas, work together as a team, collaborate, create...etc.

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  prao@...02/22/08 Report as spam
  23

  Involuntary Subcultures

  I wonder whether anyone has studied the effect of social networking forming self-selecting subcultures - sort of a extension of the high-school cliques.
  
  In the corporate world we have tried to eliminate bias, prejudice and exclusionary practices for the last 40 years or so. So much so that we have established laws to prevent workplace harrassment, discrimination and business practices that have disenfranchised employees due to the bosses' favoritism.
  
  Social networking appears to be a migration of high school and college practices into the workplace.... I am not sure that we have the legal structures to guarantee fairness and lack of discriminatory and exclusionary practices.

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  pete.bollini@...02/22/08 Report as spam
  24

  RE: Great Moments in Terrible Ideas: A Social Network for Your Company

  I agree with the author. One thing is a social meeting place for physical people where you can satisfy your natural curiosity by reading their body language and sharing true interests and another a virtual meeting ground where anonymity reigns. These virtual friends are certainly not friends at all, they are merely ghosts on the PC screen.

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  green.tom@...02/22/08 Report as spam
  25

  RE: Great Moments in Terrible Ideas: A Social Network for Your Company

  Right. Social networks are failing. People have maxed out on their very human interest in talking, connecting, socializing, exchanging information, and encouraging each other. Web 2.0 is over. Give me a break.
  
  www.runnerslounge.com

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  mkass02/22/08 Report as spam
  26

  RE: Great Moments in Terrible Ideas: A Social Network for Your Company

  Mr. Swearingen,
  
  If interested, yesterday Sabre Holdings (parent of travelocity.com) just announced an agreement with American Express on their cubeless product, which is exactly a social networking platform for internal business communiations. Here is the Yahoo Finance article from 2 days ago:
  
  http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080220/20080220005866.html?.v=1
  
  and the website
  
  http://www.cubeless.com
  
  If interested, please check it out.

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  partnerdesk@...02/23/08 Report as spam
  27

  Web 2.0 Demise... Far too Premature!

  Surely you jest about Social Networking being a Terrible Idea and your article, although thoughtful, was tongue-in-cheek...wasn't it?
  
  For each that may agree with you, I'd bet there are 5-10 others that would disagree. If you premise was that the number of social networks has gotten out of control, I'd agree with you; but, as a means of connecting and communicating, it's far superior to email whose usefulness has grown questionable. Why? One four-letter word, spam.
  
  When dozens, scores, hundreds of people are weighing in on a topic (in or out of one's LAN/WAN), email is Web 1.0, aka the Stone Ages. At the end of the day, blogging wins and will continue to do so until Web 3.0 matures.
  
  Sorry, Jake, your obituary is Terribly Premature.

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  partnerdesk@...02/23/08 Report as spam
  28

  Web 2.0 Demise... Far too Premature!

  Surely you jest about Social Networking being a Terrible Idea and your article, although thoughtful, was tongue-in-cheek...wasn't it?
  
  For each that may agree with you, I'd bet there are 5-10 others that would disagree. If your premise was that the number of social networks has gotten out of control, I'd agree with you; but, as a means of connecting and communicating, it's far superior to email whose usefulness has grown questionable. Why? One four-letter word, spam.
  
  When dozens, scores, hundreds of people are weighing in on a topic (in or out of one's LAN/WAN), email is Web 1.0, aka the Stone Ages. At the end of the day, blogging wins and will continue to do so until Web 3.0 matures.
  
  Sorry, Jake, your obituary is Terribly Premature.

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  nastacio02/25/08 Report as spam
  29

  RE: Great Moments in Terrible Ideas: A Social Network for Your Company

  I think it depends a lot on the size of the company. Social networks require a certain critical mass to work and only a small fraction (less than 1%) of the average technology work fits the profile of a blogger or wiki user.
  
  Within that small population, it is extremely beneficial to have them connected. They tend to be the most innovative and skilled portionof the workforce. Think beyond blogging, think social bookmarking for instance, and the benefit of having the less "connected" employees being fed the links so dutifully surfaced by the company thought leaders.
  
  In IBM, there are over 350.000 employees and large share of them can no longer imagine a workday without its vast array of social networking tools.

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  cdutty02/25/08 Report as spam
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  RE: Great Moments in Terrible Ideas: A Social Network for Your Company

  Just another fad.

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  TrenchWriter03/21/08 Report as spam
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  Maybe, if you're 14...

  Really, in a professional environment, does any grown up (older than 25) use social media for anything other than staving off boredome or reaching an occasional lost friend? I'd rather IM someone at work than waste bandwidth on youtube watching the other side of the office do, well, anything.