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Enterprise 2.0: Social Networking in the CloudBy Brian T. HorowitzNovember 5, 2009
As social networking applications such as Atlassian, Jive and Telligent develop their foothold in the enterprise, the cloud has developed into the hosted environment for these tools. Andrew McAfee, author of the forthcoming book Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization's Toughest Challenges, principal research scientist at MIT, and fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, coined the term Enterprise 2.0 in 2006 to mean the "use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers." Some pundits say having your own corporate social platform is better than working off a public environment. Analyst Mike Gotta of research firm Burton Group described social networking as just another application in the cloud. "Social networking applications are just another app," he says. "At the application layer, it doesn't seem to be anything unique, other than there's an expectation of flexibility by being on the cloud that you don't get on premise." Gotta said he believes the issues of interoperability and repetition are problems for social media in the cloud. "Enterprise vendors are starting to mimic each other, by all coming out with versions of enterprise Twitter," he says. Yet progress is ahead on the interoperability front. On October 20, social networking provider Minggl unveiled a social interaction management application that allows individuals to access multiple social networking communities simultaneously. Meanwhile, although Google's OpenSocial provides an application program interface for social networks across multiple Web sites, Gotta noted that many companies aren't using it. McAfee, however, explained that companies get real business benefits from using social tools in the cloud. "Companies are using these tools — these are social tools," he said. "Most of them are hosted in the cloud." Here are a few tips on how to maximize your use of Enterprise 2.0 apps in the cloud. Take Advantage of the Benefits of Community"Organizations want that place to go where they can see people's profiles, all that white space, their expertise, interests, hobbies," Gotta says. Social networks in the enterprise provide a great opportunity for community building. Geographical barriers become less of an issue when workers employ these tools. Plus, productivity increases as stronger working relationships result in the workplace through community building and sharing knowledge. "If we can give employees social tools and social applications, then they can find creative ways to work together, share tools and build community to improve business," Gotta said. Trust Your EmployeesEarly in the history of social networking — or Enterprise 2.0 as McAfee coined it — companies frowned upon employees using social sites in the office. In fact, according to a survey by IT consulting firm Robert Half Technology, 54 percent of CIOs interviewed reported their firms prohibited employees from visiting social networking sites in the office. But now as social networking becomes a part of the job, as both a marketing and a networking tool, trusting your employees becomes essential. "Companies that I’ve seen that succeed the most with this are the ones that do the best job of getting out of the way and trusting their people and harvesting the good content that emerges," McAfee said. Deploy Despite the RisksDeploying the emergent software tools in the cloud in your company are worth the potential risks, said McAfee. He noted that the risks may include harassment or hate speech on company blogs or wikis, lost productivity filling out employee profiles, and hacking. McAfee added that sharing the data with third-party suppliers can be a risk as well. Yet the collaboration benefits are real. Promote InternallyAccording to Gotta, you want to plug your internal social portal throughout company literature, such as the employee handbook and newsletters, to get people using the network. "Build a marketing campaign around the social networking site," he advised. "That can help drive awareness and get people to participate." Scale Your PortalEmmanuel Garcin, vice president and general manager of Jahia North America, a provider of Web content integration software, such as social networking tools, stressed the importance of scaling your portal on the cloud, whether it's a small or large setup. This may involve adding more CPU or storage space to your site. "Whether it's social networking or not social networking, you need to be able to scale," he said. Garcin explained that in the cloud, vendors pay only for the services they use. "The cloud allows you to be extremely flexible in your settings," he said. "The beauty of the cloud is that if sites see peaks of traffic after the launch, then they can scale very easily," Garcin adds. For Jahia, clients range from world bodies (United Nations) to Fortune 500 investment firms, such as Goldman Sachs. Follow Enterprise IT Planet on Twitter
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