Automation of business processes can improve how
information is managed. However, many activities that rely on
groups of people to collectively share information and make
decisions cannot be fully automated.
Social software represents a different design perspective to
support groups and the social networks that connect people to each
other.
Many experts associate social software with specific types of
tools, such as blogs, wikis, tagging and social bookmark services.
The focus, however, should be on understanding the design criteria
and adoption patterns.
This enables developers to deploy applications that support a
group context and allows people to easily recombine one application
with another in mashups, for example.
Social software encourages informal interaction and helps people
organise themselves based on community participation and
information sharing.
Enterprises should be aware that social software can help
technologists create environments that improve how teams and
communities perform and innovate. This software represents a
different way to look at system design. Rather than concentrate
only on data and process requirements, social software forces
developers to accommodate the tacit aspects of how work is
done.
Formal institutions around knowledge management practices and
learning methods should not be replaced, but social software can
augment existing structures and processes around distance learning,
enterprise taxonomies and enterprise content management.
People learn best in the context of their work and often through
peer interaction. Social software focuses on “the edge” by making
it easier for people to interact and share information that might
not be available through formal channels. Social software provides
a balance to more formalised processes around knowledge management
and learning.
Some enterprises have deployed blogs and wikis internally around
specific applications and have achieved success in areas of
business intelligence and programme/project management. So why has
social software not found its way into enterprises on a broader
scale?
Although some products, such as Traction Software for blogs,
Socialtext for wikis and other open source options, have found
their way into enterprises, the technology has yet to be pushed by
a major enterprise software supplier. This will change.
Microsoft plans to include blog and wiki capabilities within
Office, and IBM has demonstrated similar capabilities within its
Notes/Domino platform. IBM also has an internal product called
Dogear (tagging and social bookmark) that will be made available
this year as Lotus Connections. Microsoft also offers Knowledge
Network, which adds expertise and social networking capabilities to
Office Sharepoint Server 2007.
Some companies, such as IBM, have incorporated social networking
analysis into their business consulting practices. When blogs are
used for marketing and public relations, firms are available to
provide professional services as well.
Professional services are related to how these tools are
applied. They will be solution-focused and tools are incorporated
into existing practices.
Similar trends have occurred in other areas, such as enterprise
portals and enterprise content management, where suppliers are
under pressure as once-specialised technology becomes commoditised
as general infrastructure. The key for these suppliers will be to
focus on applications and vertical market products or specific
infrastructure services that extend what major suppliers provide as
a core framework.
Contact Networks, for instance, has a social networking platform
that targets sales and has expanded its focus to professional
services and legal. Traction Software has targeted competitive
intelligence as one professional application with its social
software tools.
Technologists have become more knowledgeable in understanding
business requirements. The result has been a steady improvement in
the way enterprise applications and infrastructure are planned,
built and deployed to support the process and information
management needs of organisations.
What has not been equally well understood is how to support the
softer issues and organisational dynamics. This is the realm of
social software and the design principles, methods and practices
that it encourages. By 2010, we will see a new breed of
technologist who fully understands how to design and implement
systems that focus on groups, their relationships, their
interactivities and the networks that connect them.
Such systems and environments will be service oriented, with
well-defined metamodels and metadata, enabling them to be
integrated with applications such as workflow or decision-support
systems.
They can also be extended in ways not conceived by the original
designers, much like mashups today, as groups construct their own
personal, team or community spaces to interact, share information
or collaborate.
Implementing social software in the
enterprise
● Governance is critical. If your organisation is not ready for
informal, community-centric practices to improve communication,
information sharing and collaboration, social software will likely
fail in a general sense (it may still succeed if applied around
specific applications)
● Include groups involved in organisational development and human
capital management
● Expect a short lifecycle for any investment
● Continue to monitor the market and the maturity of the
technology
● Do not standardise too quickly on a single supplier
● Investigate and document both project success and failure.
Source: Burton Group
Mike Gotta is a principal analyst at Burton Group
www.burtongroup.com