Enterprise Social Computing
If your clients are like most, their employees are most likely experiencing information overload. They receive countless input throughout their day including data coming through their smartphones, computer, the company network and the internet.
While these technologies can allow employees to be more productive, they can also increase the time required to search for documents, information and experts within the organization.
The technologies for finding information behind their company firewall—e-mail, enterprise search, file shares, knowledge management systems and employee directories—do not provide employees with fast and easy access to the information they need.
At the same time, web-based social media tools have made it significantly easier for many employees to find and share information over the internet:
- LinkedIn and Facebook allow employees to identify expertise in their social network
- Wikis, blogs and discussion forums provide relevant information on a wide variety of topics
- Social bookmarking tools permit employees to share links
- Twitter and other sites provide status updates to track what other people in their network are doing.
- On-line survey tools allow employees to collect data from others
Enterprise social media tools allow organizations to more effectively share information and expertise behind the firewall. The most common enterprise social media tools are:
- Blogs
- Wikis
- Discussion Boards
- Surveys
- MySites (employee pages)
Microsoft’s Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) and Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) provide organizations with a baseline set of enterprise social media tools. Third party software providers have enhanced the out-of-the-box SharePoint tools facilitating sharing information and expertise with applications such as Newsgator’s Social Sites. In addition, SharePoint can be customized to implement tailored social media capabilities.
AppArchers works with our clients to analyze their requirements for and current use of enterprise social media tools. We then develop a plan for adding tools and integrating them into their existing SharePoint-based intranet. We will assess the fit of SharePoint’s out-of-the-box and third party tools and determine if customization is required. We will then work to implement an enterprise social media plan.
Benefits
Employees who use Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn in their personal lives know the power of social media tools for finding information, sharing expertise and building a strong social network. These employees realize social media tools can improve their effectiveness at work and expect to find them in their organizations.
Organizations that deploy these tools as part of an integrated social media strategy will see increased collaboration, stronger ties among employees, reduced turnover, and improved communication both internally and with customers.
We would be pleased to discuss our many SharePoint 2010 productivity options with you. Contact us on 866-496-APPS or by email at contact@apparchers.com.
