Social Networking and Collaboration on the 'Intranet'

Social Networking is a rage on the Internet with popular sites like Facebook and Twitter competing with countries like India and China on the "population" front. Unfortunately many corporates globally restrict access to the Social Networking sites from the office due to security as well as work productivity related reasons.  It is however a good idea to have the equivalent of a social network on the Intranet.

Several companies are leveraging the social networking phenomena on the Intranet as this fosters bonding, networking, exchange of innovative ideas, joint problem solving and many other benefits which result in creating benefits to the organization like stronger camaraderie which might lower attrition due to the feel good factor, free exchange of information across the functional boundaries which will help resolve complex problems involving multiple functional areas, communications between like minded people bypassing the traditional hierarchical lines  will also help foster innovation and growth.

There are two broad categories of social networking applications on the Corporate Intranets of today. The first is the “Facebook” like applications which build social networks within the company and the second is the “Wiki” like applications which are used as tools of collaboration. Both the types of applications serve their designated purposes and may be even more within the Corporate Intranets.

“Wiki” like applications can be used for the following purposes:

·         Creating a Knowledge Management portal within the organization to tap the tacit and latent knowledge which groups of people have in a specialized area. This will serve as a repository or storehouse of information which remained untapped earlier. The beauty is that several people can simultaneously collaborate in creating this storehouse of information and can enhance the quality of information collectively.

·         Some companies use “Wiki” like applications when they need to come out with crucial documents such as the “Company Strategy” or “Unit Business Plan” in a collaborative manner involving the people at multiple levels. This can achieve even better results if it is moderated and driven by an SME. Several global companies have successfully used this tool for coming out with a bottom’s up strategy and when they need to incorporate the ideas from grassroot level folks in the creation of the strategy. A properly moderated “Wiki” can yield good results especially when there is an enabling structure for consolidation and funneling up of information.

·         Even day to day documents like user manuals, project plans, RFP responses, technical documents etc can be created by teams of SMEs using “Wiki” like tools

·         These can be used for collation and dissemination of information across geographically dispersed teams

“Facebook” like applications can be used for the following purposes:

·         Creating a purely informal social network for people within the organization (for friends within the organization) to share personal information and photos, videos etc. This will replace the email which has been used so far for this purpose

·         To create a ‘project workgroup’ for people working on a project to share and exchange information and ideas related to a project. This can gradually lead to people on the group sharing personal information as well and thus fostering stronger ties within the project team.

·         For Initiating discussions within a company or a unit on various aspects of the company such as policy changes, opinions on business strategies, trends in the industry etc

·         Create a forum for like minded groups to share and exchange information across the company pertaining to their topic of interest

Many corporations the world over have embraced these social networking trends and are in-fact using these tools for their competitive advantage. Any organization that needs to compete in today’s world cannot do without these kind of tools.