Enterprise-class social networking is apparently all the rage, news that will be met with mixed emotions by anyone who feels that tools like Yammer are more annoying than useful.
The premise of these workplace-oriented social tools — things like the aforementioned Yammer, Socialcast and features and functions in IBM Sametime and Microsoft(msft) SharePoint, is that they help workgroups and departments work together better, know where everyone is, and cut down on telephone and e-mail tag.
Salesforce.com was early to the party with Chatter, and Microsoft has been pushing SharePoint as a vehicle for a social networking in a workplace context
As Salesforce.com rolled out its integration of the Rypple social-networking oriented human-resources management acquisition into its CRM and Chatter products, Microsoft’s Sharepoint team was on the road touting research into what companies “really” want in enterprise social networking. A Microsoft spokeswoman said enterprise social networking will be a big area of investment for Microsoft in the coming months.
As is its habit, Microsoft attacks this market with a “platform” approach (as in why buy plain old instant messaging when you can buy a big hunk of software?) — which puts workplace social interaction in the context of getting your job done.
Right now, a lot of the talk around social networking touches on “frothiness,” said Jared Spatero, senior director for SharePoint product management in an interview Wednesday. ”The discourse is all about how feeds and follows will change your life. We think it’s about task completion, not stalking people and hearing about what they had for lunch,” he said.
Here are some highlights from Microsoft-funded research on enterprise social networking adoption plans conducted by Harris Interactive. The researcher surveyed 202 “business and IT decision makers” in companies with more than 1,000 employees. Note: The respondents worked for companies that either have social networking in place or plan to implement it.
- 65 percent of respondents believe it is “absolutely essential or extremely important” to involve their IT department in creating an enterprise social network.
- 57 percent are inclined to use a mixture of new and existing social software
- 25 percent said they will leverage existing infrastructure
- 18 percent will adopt new social software
- 90 percent cited security as a top concern in rolling out social networking
- 66 percent said integration with existing systems is a top concern
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
- The Future of Work Platforms: An Overview
- Social Media in the Enterprise
- Personal tools lead to practical business