So: Facebook in the Enterprise

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Facebook in the Enterprise

Social networking is a hot topic these days. Over the past several months I have made a personal goal to figure out how the various social networking tools can be valuable both in my personal live as well as my professional life.

For me, Facebook was an obvious place to start as I have received the most invitations to join Facebook or view other people's information in Facebook. So I joined and uploaded some information about myself. Then I started receiving super pokes and all kinds of other gimmicks from Facebook friends. I can see how this is a fun tool and a great way to keep in touch with friends and family as I can upload pictures of vacations and post status about what I am up to.

However, I am struggling to figure out how this is valuable in my professional life, especially inside a company. For developing my career and networking, it seems like Linked In is a lot more valuable. Either way, there are certain things I would like to publish on Facebook that I would not like my work colleagues to see. For example, pictures of my family hanging out in bathing suits in our last family vacation. No problem on the family seeing this, but probably not the guy down the hall at work.

Inside the company, I have heard stories about companies as large as GE who are heavy users of Facebook and rely on it to get their work done. I don't get it. Are they using it to share documents? Or maybe this is a simple way to publish project information and status? Aren't wikis and blogs a better way to accomplish this?

Am I missing something?

April 22, 2008 | Permalink

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Comments

I've heard stories from big companies actually using Facebook, too, and it blows my mind. There's nothing it lets you do that e-mail and a simple Wiki tool don't do -- without the added risk of letting *everyone*on*the*internet* read your communications. Plus, most time spent on Facebook seems to be on Vampire-poking and Scrabulous.

LinkedIn seems like a good place to hire or get hired (I've used it for the former), and that's useful--but I can't imagine a big company using it exclusively.

Here's a social-networking question for you: have you tried Twitter?

Posted by: Dan Ciruli | April 23, 2008 at 08:49 AM

He's back! Hope this is not a one off Bob.

Anyway… Stop right where you are...carefully replace the top of that can of worms and walk away slowly. No? okay then, sit back and try this…

I wrote about consumer meets enterprise... (http://mikepersaud.wordpress.com/2007/12/04/consumer-meets-enterprise/), primarily because I began talking about it within our enterprise and I came up against blank faces, negative responses and white vans waiting for me outside the building (ok, the last one isn’t true, but I felt that’s what they wanted to do).

I’ve always felt my previous company’s CRM application should be based on a Enterprise version of Linkedin, I think that using consumer technology within the Enterprise can be valuable if implemented correctly. One could argue that LinkedIn is a professional public network and not a consumer site, but I disagree and I think they are heading more and more into consumer-land.

I think you know of an organisation in Seattle that had a marketing slogan years ago that asked the audience to ‘Embrace and extend’

Think back to IM and Chat Forums, I think you were one of the pioneers that brought what originated as a consumer technology into the enterprise. You did that because you saw business value through an example of how it could be used (not to mention that a reputable and successful business was born out of it).

I can go onto mention other technologies and examples that originated in consumer land and was adopted by the enterprise, but that's not the point of my comment.

In last weeks Economist they ran a special on mobility (http://economist.co.uk/specialreports/). One of the articles highlights how mobility has changed the business landscape and how we are evolving and embracing mobility. That's accepted I hear you say, I can see that, but as with many of the consumer technologies it is another generation that adopts it first and they grow up with it as a seamless extension to conventional communication and collaboration. The Economist adventurously states that with the increase in functionality on mobile devices and the always-on ability it's worth asking...

_“what the social effects will be, for two reasons. First, the broad technological future is pretty clear: there will be ever faster cellular networks, far more numerous Wi-Fi “hotspots” and many more gadgets to connect to these networks. Second, the social changes are already visible: parents on beaches waving at their children while typing furtively on their BlackBerrys; entrepreneurs discovering they don't need offices after all (if you need to recharge something, you just go to Starbucks); teenagers text-dumping their boyfriends. Everybody is doing more on the move.”_

So the divide between the consumer and enterprise or between your personal and professional life will have an option to converge. It is up to you/us to ensure the implementation is right and not embraced because of poor implementation.

Thing is, of course you're missing something, most of us will, if we put up the barriers, but it is the next generation that will show us how and given the chance they will extend it...just ask your kids.

Posted by: Mike Persaud | April 23, 2008 at 04:33 PM

On the subject of Twitter Dan, I think I'm missing something there. I don't get it especially when you have Facebook for your snippet updates. I have friends in Facebook who twitter to Facebook!!! Why? I tried it and it just seems that I am updating my Facebook status from twitter when I can simply go to Facebook.

Ok, some might say what happens if you want to update your friends outside Facebook and those who 'follow' you on Twitter? Well, in my case I don't like being followed and most of my contacts both private and professional are joining Facebook.

I watch this video and it prompted this comment.... I am none the wiser.

http://commoncraft.com/Twitter

Am I missing something?

Posted by: Mike Persaud | April 25, 2008 at 07:07 AM