Enterprise Social Networking is More Than Facebook Behind a Firewall

More input from Brian Solis at Altimeter Group on the "you" in social in business:

Everything you see in social networks is unique to you because you are at the center of the entire experience. This is why I lovingly refer to social media as the Egosystem. By design, everything revolves around you. Your friends, co-workers, the businesses and organizations you support, are linked to by you. You have become the ringmaster of your personal connectivity and in many ways, serve as the IT department not only for yourself, but also the people who rely upon you to ease their way into the egosystem. You know better than anyone what it takes to engage you and also inspire you to take action.

The article highlights some current enterprise social media trends and some good action items for success.

Social in Business: Build it an they will come (?)

This is the second post in the Top Dog/Elguji Social in Business blog series. Today we focus on people.

Social - tending or form cooperative and interdependent relationships with others.¹

By its very nature, the term social implies people. I particularly like this definition of “social” since it is open-ended enough to us to consider “others” as either people or information. After all, in the world of “social software” what we're really discussing here are technologies that foster relationships between people and other people, people and information, and information with other information. Bottom line is that social in business aims to tap into people and the human factors of how work gets accomplished. This is tricky stuff. There are so many subjective factors that a one-size-fits-all approach to social software in the enterprise is virtually impossible. What we can do is look at best practices and figure out if they support the specific business or process we seek to improve and then apply what makes best sense to succeed.

As noted in our first post, enterprises are moving beyond the "it's just a fad" opinion of social software to cautious optimism and beginning to formulate just what social software would look like at their firm and how it can improve business. The fact that social software in each business can mean different things is probably a blessing and a curse. On the one hand it's great to have many options but on the other hand it means more complexity in figuring out which options to implement first or which things will support the firms needs the best.

Understanding which options to pick means having a good idea on how people at the firm work and what tools will help them do their jobs most effectively. Today that's a moving target. With mobile, consumer tools (e.g., Facebook, Google Plus), globalization, telecommuting, and the changing workforces, not only are the lines blurred between work and personal business but also navigating the matrix of different working styles is becoming more difficult to quantify and address. For example, the fact that I’m siting in a café in downtown LA right now while writing this does not mean I am any more or less effective than if I were sitting at a desk in an office building. In other words firms need to address all of these “human” factors to keep up and make a productive working environment.

Since people are vital to social in business we are seeing HR, Operations, and departments other than IT initiating social in business. This makes a lot of sense, considering that we are talking about working with and impacting the culture of the organization and how it works.  It also makes sense that parts of the organization dedicated to its culture and operations are very interested in what happens with social technology.

IT has the power to make the enterprise more effective but IT has never been accused of being a social mover or shaker. Rightfully so, IT really should not be in the business of changing corporate working culture; it should be in the business of making sure that people work effectively and securely through the proper use and implementation of tools. IT’s role is to help the human factors side of the business succeed at social in business. This can only be accomplished through planning, implementing, and cooperating with the people parts of the business.

Social software in business isn’t just a matter of “build it and they will come.” Rather, social in business requires first, an understanding of how people work together with others (people and information) to conduct business. Only then can IT implement and create an ecosystem that will support the social business needs most effectively.

1. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social

Social Media usage by Fortune 100 firms

A few stats on Social Media use in Fortune 100 companies courtesy of iStrategy:

Fortune 100 Social Media Statistics: key takeaways

• 79% of the Fortune 100 are present and listening, using at least of one of the main social platforms to communicate with their customers.
• 20% of Companies are using all four of the main social technologies (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Blogs)
• 82% of the Fortune 100 update and engage with customers on their Twitter account per week.
• Fortune 100 Companies on average post 3.6 wall posts to their Facenbook page per week
• 50% of the Fortune 100 have a YouTube account and upload 10 videos on average a month

Herre we go again...

Sigh, this is classic for anyone who's worried about data privacy when developing web-based apps. The WSJ reports today that:

The practice, which most of the companies defended, sends user names or ID numbers tied to personal profiles being viewed when users click on ads. After questions were raised by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook and MySpace moved to make changes. By Thursday morning Facebook had rewritten some of the offending computer code.

Advertising companies are receiving information that could be used to look up individual profiles, which, depending on the site and the information a user has made public, include such things as a person's real name, age, hometown and occupation.

So if you click on an ad from your profile page, the referring URL is sent to the advertiser without being scrubbed. Looks like steps are being/have been taken by at least Facebook, but this is a rookie mistake. To ameliorate the sting of yet another Facebook privacy smack-down, other social networks are doing the same:

In addition to Facebook and MySpace, LiveJournal, Hi5, Xanga and Digg also sent advertising companies the user name or ID number of the page being visited. (MySpace is owned by News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal.) Twitter—which doesn't have ads on profile pages—also was found to pass Web addresses including user names of profiles being visited on Twitter.com when users clicked other links on the profiles.

And don' tell me advertisers armed with URL referrers back to user profile pages are making sure they are getting user's consent before looking at the profiles.

Facebook said its practices are now consistent with how advertising works across the Web. The company passes the "user ID of the page but not the person who clicked on the ad," the company spokesman said. "We don't consider this personally identifiable information and our policy does not allow advertisers to collect user information without the user's consent."

A URL referrer (i.e., user ID of the page) is a technicality; if it goes back to the user's profile page then it is a breach of a policy not to divulge personally identifiable information to 3rd parties.

I repeat myself, I'm glad all of this is happening. The social media is growing up and it's the consumers that are ensuring that things are getting safer out there. Apparently when experts expose security issues the fixes languish:

The sharing of users' personally identifiable data was first flagged in a paper by researchers at AT&T Labs and Worcester Polytechnic Institute last August. The paper, which drew little attention at the time, evaluated practices at 12 social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter and MySpace and found multiple ways that outside companies could access user data.

I know it's hip to buck the established/academic technology world in social media tech circles, but sometimes these smarty-pants can actually help to prevent some embarrassing moments.

Facebook, MySpace Confront Privacy Loophole - WSJ.com

Which company is more social?

Nice graphics and details on the use of social media at top firms. I find the IBM numbers low, probably because IBM has so many private social networks which would not be reflected in these charts. So does that mean that Microsoft personnel use public social networks more because the company hasn't establish strong private social networks? Or is IBMs lower use of public networks a sign of weaker ties to external connections?

Click here to full chart.

Media in the 21st Century

June 2009 TED video of Clay Shirky on the transformation of media in the 21st Century. I like the way he makes these ideas so clear and understandable.

Things don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.