One of the more difficult things to accomplish within a "social enterprise network" is understanding which connections are truly important.
The relationships fostered by the connections employees cultivate with one another, over the course of their day-to-day, are truly key determinents in the success they find inside the office. When consciously studied, relationships reveal a great deal about an organization, its culture and management efficacy. They provide insight to the speed with which joint projects may (or may not) be completed, as well as the likely relevancy they'll deliver to those who receive their output. Unfortunately, the fabric of an organization's connections, specifically the depth and degree of their tensile strength, is oft-misrepresented...if it is understood at all.
In prior posts, I've illustrated how relationship connections play a part in standard scenarios supported by business application software. Two common scenarios receiving a lot of airplay and attention in the corporate social software arena include: "preparation for sales meetings within an opportunity pipeline" and "disparate teams working together to manage a 'content supply chain' in a global firm". [The first scenario is supported by most "sales force automation" capabilities in available customer relationship management (CRM) systems, while the latter is found within most enterprise content management (ECM) solutions.]
Oracle's latest release of its CRM On-Demand application, for example, comes close to embedding "social CRM" capabilities with its "sticky notes" feature. When a CRM's pipeline & opportunity management applications cross-reference employee profiles for prior experience at a competitor or prospect, groups them in terms of relevance to an individual deal and then automatically notify sales reps for deal-support...we'll have moved one step closer.
Similarly, both OpenText and Vignette have recently embraced Web 2.0 and introduced social networking capabilities within their current releases -- i.e., ratings, reviews, polls, tagging, tag clouds, comments, usage analysis, blogs, wikis and forums. But, as with Oracle in CRM, neither OpenText nor Vignette have crossed the social software bridge to deliver on its true promise within enterprise content management. When a content management system enables auto-notifications to both product development and marketing teams both creating similar product information so they can collaborate in real-time...we'll get closer to the communal effort required for effective content management.
The essential ingredient required in any social-computing initiative aiming to be more than a "facebook-for-the-enterprise-portal" is "social network analysis". There are many sources that explain the concept of social-network-analysis but suffice to say it is "the understanding of who is connected to whom and why" within an organization.
The announcements of Oracle, OpenText and Vignette all broach the potential of embedded social ethnography within their applications but none quite deliver. But watch-out when they finally do!
The closest example, save our friends at Visible Path (now part of Hoovers), of a social-network analysis software solution I've seen comes from London-based Trampoline Systems. Trampoline's software promises to "...displays the crucial social factors at play within organisations including key opinion formers, poorly-integrated business units, emerging communities of interest, single points of failure and third-party relationships." Quite a mouthful but beyond intriguing.
As "communal, facebook-like portals" and "social-capabilities contextually embedded within a software solution" are both two sides to the social enterprise coin each becomes meaningful when their relevance is firmly rooted in an organization's ethnography.
Although, Hoover's beat the enterprise players to Visible Path -- perhaps, they'll move more quickly and pounce on Trampoline.
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