Social networking is no longer a curiosity for enterprises. It has become an area of major interest and investment.

Trite as it may sound to declare that social is the new black, social networking -- meaning software that enhances communication and collaboration through identity-oriented connections -- is in vogue. The reason is that it works, as organizations like Citibank, Wells Fargo, and the U.S. Department of State plan to attest at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, which begins on November 8th in Santa Clara, Calif.

Source: www.informationweek.com Posted by bee 573 days, 18 hours, 1 minute ago

There’s been a great discussion recently amongst The 2.0 Adoption Council crew on what we’re trying to achieve and the role of traditional corporate and internal comms. What more than a few members have experienced in one form or another is resistance from their Comms colleagues. This has got me thinking as to what the core reasons might be and how a reconciliation of interests might be possible.

My own background is in part Comms based & so I can empathise with where the Comms teams are coming from. With this in mind it might be helpful to step back and look at where the Comms guys are coming from (and particularly internal comms, my own area). And where better than to turn to than Melcrum. I had a mail today promoting their Melcrum Black Belt Course which asked:

1. When planning your communication activities, which is more true?

   A: I focus on delivering outputs.
   B: I focus on achieving outcomes.

2. Was the completion of your last communication project:

   A: An end in itself?
   B: A means to an end?

3. When you gauge the success of a communication initiative, do you measure:

   A: Levels of awareness and satisfaction with the channels used?
   B: Attitudes, behaviours and whether business objectives were achieved?

Source: theparallaxview.com Posted by support 576 days, 17 hours, 22 minutes ago

This post aims to think about the commonalities of mundane, day-to-day work, or verbs that are universal in corporate life. We treat these as our universal constants, and my idea is that social software has a major role to play in being the vehicle of common business activities.

We have only seen a glimpse of what is possible in activity feeds that are central to most social software suites. It's time to ramp up to a language that fosters adoption and cuts obscurity.

Source: www.headshift.com Posted by bee 578 days, 18 hours, 23 minutes ago

With the continued growth in both volume and influence of social content inside organisations, how should internal comms managers respond?

How can an internal comms manager keep up with the buzz in social channels inside their organisation?

You can try to use technology to monitor the buzz, but the only really effective way to keep up with what’s going on is to be in the thick of it yourself … connected to those with the greatest influence and to those who comment about the bits of the business for which you have responsibility. Internal comms managers need to be the super-networkers inside an organisation … the alternative is to become out-of-touch and irrelevant.

Source: richarddennison.wordpress.com Posted by bee 581 days, 21 hours, 3 minutes ago

BankWest has revealed details of its internal social networking service, IdeaBank, with the platform resulting in more collaboration and innovation.

Head of application delivery at the bank, Dave Williams, addressed a group of IT professionals in Sydney at the Gartner SOA summit where he outlined how IdeaBank is fostering shared information and increased customer growth.

"At BankWest we've built an application called IdeaBank. It's a social networking application. You can go to it and say 'I have a problem, can you help me solve it?' You don't worry if people can solve your problem because it's more about putting your idea out there." Williams said.

Source: www.cio.com Posted by support 586 days, 2 hours, 56 minutes ago

Collaboration and social tools promise to transform how organisation work, dramatically improving the way that staff communicate and work together. They also provide new ways of storing (and retrieving) corporate information.

For all this, these are deeply unfamiliar tools for most “normal” staff (ie not us). They are not drop-in replacements for our old ways of working, and require different behaviours and ways of thinking.

It is therefore strange to see so many organisations rolling out these tools with little or no training or support. In many cases, there isn’t even an announcement heralding the release of these new tools, with adoption left to organic growth through word-of-mouth.

Source: www.steptwo.com.au Posted by bee 594 days, 16 hours, 26 minutes ago

I’m a bit concerned about the ‘buzz’ around the social enterprise at the moment. Whilst I’m a champion of social platforms within organisations and I’m firmly in the camp of more collaborative and social workplace, I’m a little concerned that one of the primary goals of intranet resources is starting to get overlooked: That of Search.

The current thought leaders in the field (Don Tapscott, Charlene Li et al) are right in saying the increased socialization and networking capabiliti...

Source: kevinmcdougall.wordpress.com Posted by support 595 days, 21 hours, 49 minutes ago

One of the trends that we clearly see this year is that organizations are taking stock of all their social media efforts, internally and externally. Usually they are trying to get beyond the initial learning years and the resulting chaos to determine how they should best be structured to deal with what has become the world’s largest and most engaged marketplace. And, while everyone can and should be a foot solider in the modern social enterprise, businesses are also starting to realize that the days of isolated tactical experiments are drawing to a close.

We frequently encounter businesses today that have dozens and sometimes hundreds of individual social media efforts. This has become a major issue for those climbing higher on the social media maturity curve. The mainstreaming and growing strategic importance of social media, combined with the aforementioned proliferation and spread across most organizations, is creating unique challenges all their own.

Source: www.dachisgroup.com Posted by support 600 days, 16 hours, 47 minutes ago

Does social software adoption have you singing the blues? If so, you're not alone.

In the enterprise social software world, everyone's talking about adoption. There are breakouts on it at Enterprise 2.0. Lots of smart people are blogging about it. There's LinkedIn forum. There's even a whole Council dedicated to social software adoption.

Why is adoption such an issue?

The standard response is to blame organizational culture. Eavesdrop on adoption conversations and you'll hear things like this

• "Corporations incentivize for knowledge-hoarding."
• "People over 30 just don't get social networking."
• "Workers aren't comfortable with transparency."
• "We have a culture of email that's hard to change."

To borrow a phrase from always-quotable Dennis Howlett: What a crock.

To borrow another phrase from the also-quotable Pogo: We have met the enemy and he is us.

Source: michaeli.typepad.com Posted by support 606 days, 1 hour, 44 minutes ago

Prescient’s Intranet 2.0 Global Study has found that 87% of organizations have at least one social media tool on the intranet, but the statistics also reveal discrepancy in satisfaction, usage and measurement, challenging the teams tasked with implementing social media tools to determine where best to start.

In our complex business environment, taking action becomes challenging. Conflicting data, viewpoints and expectations raise questions that can stimulate analysis rather than activity: will we gain market share? How can we realize efficiency? Are we attracting and retaining the right talent? But in a dynamic market, stasis can lead to falling behind more agile competitors.

Source: www.prescientdigital.com Posted by support 606 days, 17 hours, 40 minutes ago