What I see is a blending of business and social networks. Whether it's a business-networking application such as LinkedIn or a social-networking application such as Facebook, I maintain associations that are simultaneously business and personal. When I left my prior employer to form my own company, I left behind my company-specific business contact database, because, after all, they own it, but I own my personal contact database developed over many years and many employers. It is a collection of LinkedIn, Plaxo, Xing, and now Facebook contacts that cross business, charitable and social networks. As a former employee, I'm feeling pretty empowered, because on the day I launched my new company, about 800 key contacts in my network were immediately notified when I updated my profile. It was better than a press release, because the people who really mattered were the ones that were first informed.

There is a much more practical reason, why MySpace, Facebook and YouTube will not change anything in the enterprise... Because many companies block those sites in their corporate firewalls :-)

But seriously, I see changes through some techniques. For example, it is very easy to maintain a public blog, but for an internal PR department it is much harder to check all postings before going public. In the past they were used to press releases, but blogs and discussion forums create far more content.

In the end I'm with you, because the whole thing is hyped so much that it is very good that there is someone trying to provide a challenging view on the topic!

Sebastian

Dear Prof. Davenport,

It may be a mere coincidence but still fascinating that two
contrarian viewpoints have been voiced over the impact of
social networking sites during the same week.

Whatever they may or may not do, two trends are obvious when
one analyzes the nature of information exchanged over the
sites mentioned.

1. Attrition rates are likely to increase. The concept of
value creation for one organization is likely to become
more and more transcient in the face of professionals
looking for greener pastures all the time. As pointed
out in response to another post, the typical time spent
on networking sites is already frightening. Human
productivity which is one of the critical success factors
in any organization is likely to follow a downward spiral.

2. As a corollary to increased attrition, there would also be
a pressure on compensation and benefits. In a hyper-competitive
scenario, the ability of organizations to meet this challenge
and simultaneously accept the notion of lower productivity is
open to question. Margins might diminish to a point where
other key stakeholders (shareholders) might abandon the
enterprise. Since the concept of the modern organization is
built on the premise of a large number of people investing
in an enterprise, shareholders jettisoning an organization
would spell the beginning of the end.

Being the eternal optimist, I sincerely hope I am wrong. In fact,
I would be happy to be proved wrong. However, we would do well to remember that in the real world, a wide chasm exists between the ideal and the actual.

Warm Regards

It's an interesting discussion, to say the least. Recalling coroporate technology adoption curves and attitudes about internet access, instant messaging applications and even as far back as the PBX, the one constant is that the application has to make business sense.

Charlene Li makes a valid point (Why Your Company Needs To Be On Facebook), in that an employee's ability to network has a distinct value - particularly in Ms. Li's profession. Aside from the marketing potential of social networking sites, however, I would challenge anyone to reliably calculate how much value sites like Facebook would contribute to the organization. To some extent, these sites are only technology-based versions of the kinds of professional networks in which academics, engineers, marketers, lawyers and other professionals have participated for a hundred years or more. ...minus any verification of the credibility of the sites' members/participants.

In short: To be sure, these sites can be idea-rich environments from which innovation can be harvested. But without the ability to focus the resource (at least a little) and implement controls that filter out or minimize the risk of counterproductive elements of the behavior, the usefulness of social networking sites outside of the company's marketing organization is highly suspect, to say the least.

Hi Tom,

Your postings are always so insightful. Your thoughts on the impact of these tools on the workplace and your skepticism are well founded.

The real impact of these tools happens when workers entering the workplace are the same younger generation individuals who find these tools indispensable. These workers make friends, collaborate, and generally network almost exclusively over these tools. A friend recently told me that when he asked his son why he wasn't out with friends, the reply was "I am with them. We are all on Facebook". Seems like the winds of a major transformation in the way people interact, and that has to have an impact on the workplace.

Tom: The sociologist in me knows that part of you is right - the cultures/climates of workplaces (even workplaces of the future :) - are sometimes more powerful that an agile web application which allows an employee to find others in the organization with the same passion for Harley Davidsons.

However, the end-user in me (and that end user is behind a pretty high firewall here) hope you are wrong. I often evangelize on the topic of Web 2.0 and social computing behind the firewall as empowering (for the individual), innovative (for groups) and game changing (for the corporation) but realize that this is only when organizations not only acknowledge that employees are three-dimensional beings who have interest which intersect work, home, volunteering, school, sports, arts, etc. and that sometimes knowledge and interest in these diverse areas can have a business benefit (know how much it costs to replace an employee because she doesn't feel "connected" in the workplace?)

With that the "talk" about innovation, one thing companies tend to forget is it is that idea that an individual contributor has - someone else sees that idea and connects it to a business problem/issue - and then someone else (or a group) has the ability/power/position to act upon it - you've got something there...this "something" doesn't exist in a cleansed document in a KM system - it exists in that offhand comment at an in-office event, an aside during a meeting, a PS at the end of the email. Powerful stuff if that is something available for all to see/read/comment on/ act on, isn't it?

Maybe I'm too Pollyana here...

Enjoyed your point/counterpoint with Charlene Li - diversity of voices is what makes collaboration and discussion interesting!

I think you make a mistake assuming that social media and social networking primarily the province of knowledge workers (I'm paraphrasing). Workers of all kinds can collaborate and social networking technologies expand the potential for collaboration to all, not just knowledge workers. Yes, there is great resistance, but much of this resistance is based on ignorance and laziness. While there are many instances where collaboration doesn't make sense,I've always been impressed with how creative people can be when they form teams to solve problems. What's the value of that? Hard to say. Does that mean the value isn't there? Hardly.

Tom: Interesting as always. This has been an ongoing debate and think it depends on the organization, not necessarily the industry but the culture. I tend to believe that the rule of governance typically limits the amount of value you can derive from your human capital.

Google gets used for a lot of examples as a high performance organization and perhaps in that case, it is industry dependent. But at the same time, the collaborative environment of Google, predictive market techniques and their 20% time philosophy all keep the collective wheel moving faster as a whole than the individuals could possibly do themselves. Google, has used "collaborative techniques" to fundamentally turn their organization into a human capital engine and that has driven shareholder value.

Things tend to change over time. Of course I could be wrong but my sense is the companies that embrace the change, develop new paradigms and methodologies will be the ones to find advantages over the competitiion, enter new markets quicker and innovate new disruptions that will bring value to their customers more effectively.

Is there a chance people will waste time sending virtual beers or "please fill my fish tank" requests? Of course. But is this any different than spending the extra five minutes at the water cooler to discuss whether the Yankees should re-sign Alex Rodriguez? It would sound foolish to say there is "no talking" in our organization, it is time wasting and inefficient. Drawing lines can be dangerous, particularly when it is not clear cut. Organization simply need to develop light policies and hire the employees that fit their culture overall.