In her article, Social Networking Connects Business, Karen Banna discusses the opportunities and challenges as social networking sites find a home in corporate settings. It is very important that businesses establish the use of social networking as a function in line with strategic business goals, such as engaging with customers, driving sales, or getting employees talking internally. John Kembel, CEO of HiveLive, Inc., a Boulder, Colorado-based developer of social networking software says, "some companies start with a focus on internal collaboration and efficiency, while others start with more of an external focus on customer engagement. We've seen the greatest success with those companies that start externally, bringing customers closer to their business though a community. This extroverted posture makes for the fastest cultural shift, driving innovation and competitive advantage."
Once the goal of networking has been established by the business, it is important to try a pilot program to ensure that the software works effectively for the business purpose. Some companies find better success if they have two different programs: one for external networking and another one for internal networking. Once the best software design(s) have been established, it is important to create acceptable-use policies that achieve the delicate balance of restricting improper use while still encouraging the freedom to communicate and collaborate in an effective manner.
The benefit to employees in utilizing social networking in business is to reduce information overload. Studies have shown that employees are more productive if they have many network contacts that create reliable source to help filter incoming information. 60% of all U.S. workers have used at least one networking site in the past year. Employees benefit from communicating with other employees to discuss problems, brainstorm potential solutions, and share different skill sets. Customers benefit by being able to interact with the business in a direct and collaborative manner, thereby increasing the quality and quantity of their feedback. The business benefits by increased productivity and innovation in its employees, and by increased customer satisfaction. When engineered properly, social networking is a win-win-win opportunity.
IDC provides the following five ways that businesses can succeed with social networking:
1) Assess your business needs before testing technologies so you can match needs with functionality.
2) Get at least one person from each business unit to test any potential technologies. Different business units have different needs, so what works for the IT department may be lacking for the marketing department.
3) To prevent abuses, create an "acceptable use" policy that provides employees with guidelines for using the company's social networking tools.
4) Determine how easily social networking tools can be integrated with your existing technology.
5) Install filtering an monitoring software. That way, you can monitor what's going in and out of the company and prevent or detect abuses.
source: www.smartenterprisemag.com
Monday, July 20, 2009
twitter hacked!!
The recent press on the Twitter hack shows how our personal laziness can come back to haunt us. There are tons of on-line articles to read about this incident, and there seems to be lots of blame to go around on how this happened.
To me, this incident points out the potential vulnerability of web 2.0 systems and why we need to be really careful about the information we choose to put on shared drives and in clouds. This dovetails with the password security and packet sniffer discussion we had in my HRIS class last week. It's not that the security isn't there, exactly; it's that it is fairly easy to get around when users aren't vigilent in their use.
Apparently, the Twitter administrator's password was stolen by someone hacking his personal account which used the same password as his google account. All of Twitter's internal documents are stored as Google Docs, which resulted in the hacker getting access to highly sensitive documents through Google.
I have long been concerned about security issues related to Internet communications. I never put my social security number on any web form, ever. I resisted on-line payments for longer than most, but the ease and convenience won me over. At work, I've consistently been the nay-sayer to web application and payments from our membership without encrypted security. The liability for the organization, not to mention the potential damage to the customer is just too great. I cringe when our benefits broker requests the employee census electronically. I usually feel like I'm being too conservative and behind-the-times. Now I realize there is at least some justification for my concerns.
Those who are critical of cloud computing are probably going to have a field day using this incident as an example of the problems inherent in shared resources. I'm not savvy enough to write a critique on the technological shortcomings that contributed to this situation. I do, however, recognize the inevitable operator error here. Humans are lazy. When faced with multiple accounts requiring passwords, the Twitter Admin did what many of us do regularly. He didn't use a unique password for his accounts. The hacker didn't have to be a rocket scientist to crack the code.
Here are a couple of interesting articles if you haven't reached over saturation on the topic. I have to go now..... I have a couple dozen passwords to change :)
How Microsoft and habit abetted Twitter Hack: http://tinyurl.com/n4hrvj
Twitter docs hack exploits stupidity : http://tinyurl.com/n6yngk
To me, this incident points out the potential vulnerability of web 2.0 systems and why we need to be really careful about the information we choose to put on shared drives and in clouds. This dovetails with the password security and packet sniffer discussion we had in my HRIS class last week. It's not that the security isn't there, exactly; it's that it is fairly easy to get around when users aren't vigilent in their use.
Apparently, the Twitter administrator's password was stolen by someone hacking his personal account which used the same password as his google account. All of Twitter's internal documents are stored as Google Docs, which resulted in the hacker getting access to highly sensitive documents through Google.
I have long been concerned about security issues related to Internet communications. I never put my social security number on any web form, ever. I resisted on-line payments for longer than most, but the ease and convenience won me over. At work, I've consistently been the nay-sayer to web application and payments from our membership without encrypted security. The liability for the organization, not to mention the potential damage to the customer is just too great. I cringe when our benefits broker requests the employee census electronically. I usually feel like I'm being too conservative and behind-the-times. Now I realize there is at least some justification for my concerns.
Those who are critical of cloud computing are probably going to have a field day using this incident as an example of the problems inherent in shared resources. I'm not savvy enough to write a critique on the technological shortcomings that contributed to this situation. I do, however, recognize the inevitable operator error here. Humans are lazy. When faced with multiple accounts requiring passwords, the Twitter Admin did what many of us do regularly. He didn't use a unique password for his accounts. The hacker didn't have to be a rocket scientist to crack the code.
Here are a couple of interesting articles if you haven't reached over saturation on the topic. I have to go now..... I have a couple dozen passwords to change :)
How Microsoft and habit abetted Twitter Hack: http://tinyurl.com/n4hrvj
Twitter docs hack exploits stupidity : http://tinyurl.com/n6yngk
Sunday, July 19, 2009
on-line recommendations
An unexpected consequence of expanding my virtual network presence (see previous blog entry) was a recommendation request from one of my contacts. Someone had previously mentioned to me how important recommendations were on Linkedin, but I didn't expect to get a request within a day of creating my profile.
The request raises a new dilemma about recommendations, which we've previously grappled outside of cyber-space. The dilemma, which faces everyone, is the liability associated with providing a reference. These days, it seems like more and more businesses err on the side of caution and only provide the most basic facts in reference checks (yes, s/he worked here; yes, the dates of employment and/or salary data are correct). How, then, will on-line recommendations fit within these parameters? A co-worker and I decided we should run the query by the boss before doing the Linkedin recommendation. We've yet to hear back.
As is often the case these days, I almost immediately received a twitter post with related content (how do other people know what I'm thinking about?) It was a link to a blog entitled "Requested Recommendations on Social Networks: Why I Won't Do It" http://bit.ly/zq4Pp
The author thought that the filters in the Linkedin recommendation process dilute their value. Specifically, he thought the fact that the reviewee can review the submitted recommendation and then accept or reject it meant that there would rarely be objective content in those recommendations that end up being posted. Plus, it seems that providing a bad recommendation about someone in a public forum doesn't reflect particularly well on the contributor either.
The blog raised some interesting points, but they didn't seem unique to on-line recommendation processes. Potential employers face the same challenges getting objective information in hard-copy letters of recommendation and/or telephone references. I am asked to do a lot of letters of recommendation. I wouldn't accept the assignment if I didn't think I could act as a positive reference. That's not to say that I'm not objective in the content of the letter, but I screen out those few requests from people who wouldn't be well served by the information I could provide. As a reference seeker, I would not ask someone unless I felt that, on balance, they could recommend me positively. These same tendencies are going to transfer to technological processes as well. If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
There are ways to improve the content of recommendations so they aren't such puff pieces, which is the overarching criticism in the blogpost. Recommendations that include specific examples of projects or outcomes will give a prospective employer better information than generalized statements like "s/he's a real people person." And, of course, people are trying to be creative in the way in which they obtain information. It seems like it's standard practice these days to Google job applicants to see what turns up. Sources with less filtering and more organic content generation, such as blogs and Twitter, may be the next wave. Untimately, we may end up being own own best (or worst) reference.
The request raises a new dilemma about recommendations, which we've previously grappled outside of cyber-space. The dilemma, which faces everyone, is the liability associated with providing a reference. These days, it seems like more and more businesses err on the side of caution and only provide the most basic facts in reference checks (yes, s/he worked here; yes, the dates of employment and/or salary data are correct). How, then, will on-line recommendations fit within these parameters? A co-worker and I decided we should run the query by the boss before doing the Linkedin recommendation. We've yet to hear back.
As is often the case these days, I almost immediately received a twitter post with related content (how do other people know what I'm thinking about?) It was a link to a blog entitled "Requested Recommendations on Social Networks: Why I Won't Do It" http://bit.ly/zq4Pp
The author thought that the filters in the Linkedin recommendation process dilute their value. Specifically, he thought the fact that the reviewee can review the submitted recommendation and then accept or reject it meant that there would rarely be objective content in those recommendations that end up being posted. Plus, it seems that providing a bad recommendation about someone in a public forum doesn't reflect particularly well on the contributor either.
The blog raised some interesting points, but they didn't seem unique to on-line recommendation processes. Potential employers face the same challenges getting objective information in hard-copy letters of recommendation and/or telephone references. I am asked to do a lot of letters of recommendation. I wouldn't accept the assignment if I didn't think I could act as a positive reference. That's not to say that I'm not objective in the content of the letter, but I screen out those few requests from people who wouldn't be well served by the information I could provide. As a reference seeker, I would not ask someone unless I felt that, on balance, they could recommend me positively. These same tendencies are going to transfer to technological processes as well. If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
There are ways to improve the content of recommendations so they aren't such puff pieces, which is the overarching criticism in the blogpost. Recommendations that include specific examples of projects or outcomes will give a prospective employer better information than generalized statements like "s/he's a real people person." And, of course, people are trying to be creative in the way in which they obtain information. It seems like it's standard practice these days to Google job applicants to see what turns up. Sources with less filtering and more organic content generation, such as blogs and Twitter, may be the next wave. Untimately, we may end up being own own best (or worst) reference.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
expanding my network
I have capitulated (or seen the light) and created a Linkedin profile for myself. I have sent out a handful of invitations for people to link up with me (no surprise that the first accept came from my socially connected friend from friday's blog!), but being selective may not be the best strategy. Who knows? I'm not sure exactly what I'm expecting to achieve with this, but I can't really figure out the benefits unless I give it a try.
I read an article in the paper this morning about using networking sites for job-hunting purposes, which said you really need to use both Linkedin and Facebook in order to maximize your connections. I still think of Facebook as a student-driven thing, although I certainly know professionals use it also. Maybe I'll join if my daughter is willing to "friend" me...
I am enjoying twitter to the extent that I like the information that other people post. I've started to follow some HR folks outside of our class to expand my tweeter feed. I find that following the posted links by everyone (classmates, too) lead to very interesting articles, blogs, and podcasts that I wouldn't take the time to search out on my own. I followed one link that Steve Boese posted on Twitter: 8 ways to avoid overwhelming your follower's twitter stream. The advice was geared towards tweeting in a manner that wouldn't irritate one's followers by over-tweeting. http://bit.ly/v5Ly2
I'm not worried about overwhelming anyone with my additions; I'm much more likely to underwhelm. I worry that I'm not going to easily make the jump to the next step of active participation in these collaborative networks. I tend to be a pretty reserved person and I don't voluntarily share that much information about myself. Instead, I enjoy learning about other people and their interests. I'm afraid that I'll end up being one of those folks that posts once-in-a-blue-moon, which I hear is bad form. Blogging a few times a week is helpful; knowing I have a required number of posts to do forces me to share (and my apologies to all of you!) The next challenge for me will be to see if I can step outside of my normal comfort zone and start sharing voluntarily...
I read an article in the paper this morning about using networking sites for job-hunting purposes, which said you really need to use both Linkedin and Facebook in order to maximize your connections. I still think of Facebook as a student-driven thing, although I certainly know professionals use it also. Maybe I'll join if my daughter is willing to "friend" me...
I am enjoying twitter to the extent that I like the information that other people post. I've started to follow some HR folks outside of our class to expand my tweeter feed. I find that following the posted links by everyone (classmates, too) lead to very interesting articles, blogs, and podcasts that I wouldn't take the time to search out on my own. I followed one link that Steve Boese posted on Twitter: 8 ways to avoid overwhelming your follower's twitter stream. The advice was geared towards tweeting in a manner that wouldn't irritate one's followers by over-tweeting. http://bit.ly/v5Ly2
I'm not worried about overwhelming anyone with my additions; I'm much more likely to underwhelm. I worry that I'm not going to easily make the jump to the next step of active participation in these collaborative networks. I tend to be a pretty reserved person and I don't voluntarily share that much information about myself. Instead, I enjoy learning about other people and their interests. I'm afraid that I'll end up being one of those folks that posts once-in-a-blue-moon, which I hear is bad form. Blogging a few times a week is helpful; knowing I have a required number of posts to do forces me to share (and my apologies to all of you!) The next challenge for me will be to see if I can step outside of my normal comfort zone and start sharing voluntarily...
Friday, July 10, 2009
The law of the few?
Today, I spent the afternoon writing a letter of recommendation for a long-time friend and colleague. One of her greatest strengths is her ability to network with people. She is the most connected person I've ever met. This skill, which I've been amazed to witness over the years, is very difficult to effectively articulate in a reference. As I was thinking about it, I began considering the relative differences between old-fashioned networking, and the on-line veresion now occurring through facebook, linked-in, and twitter.
In the book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell discusses the key elements necessary for social change. Tipping points are "the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable". One of the key elements is the involvement of certain types of people with unique social skills who keep the momentum going. He references "the law of the few" - where 80% of the effort will be done by 20% of the participants. These "few" he describes in three categories as:
Connectors - people who "link us up with the world ... people with a special gift for bringing the world together. " Gladwell attributes the social success of Connectors to something intrinsic to their personality. My friend is most definitely a Connector.
Mavens- "information specialists", or "people we rely upon to connect us with new information." According to Gladwell, Mavens start "word-of-mouth epidemics" due to their knowledge, social skills, and ability to communicate.
Salesmen - those charismatic few with powerful negotiation skills. They tend to have an indefinable trait that goes beyond what they say, which makes others want to agree with them.
Since these days I primarily think of social networking within the context of my HRIS class, I imagine that Gladwell's "few" are the driving force behind advances in social collaboration and HRM. They are the ones to naturally be in the forefront of use, knowledge, and persuasion.
This leads me to wonder.....Are the people actively engaged in on-line social networks those who tend to be socially connected out in the world anyway? Or, does the new technology allow people who aren't natural networkers to be more active that they would otherwise? I know that we are changing the nature of interactions, but are people changing too? I don't have any answers, but I'm intrigued by the questions. I'd be interested to learn what others think about this.
In the book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell discusses the key elements necessary for social change. Tipping points are "the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable". One of the key elements is the involvement of certain types of people with unique social skills who keep the momentum going. He references "the law of the few" - where 80% of the effort will be done by 20% of the participants. These "few" he describes in three categories as:
Connectors - people who "link us up with the world ... people with a special gift for bringing the world together. " Gladwell attributes the social success of Connectors to something intrinsic to their personality. My friend is most definitely a Connector.
Mavens- "information specialists", or "people we rely upon to connect us with new information." According to Gladwell, Mavens start "word-of-mouth epidemics" due to their knowledge, social skills, and ability to communicate.
Salesmen - those charismatic few with powerful negotiation skills. They tend to have an indefinable trait that goes beyond what they say, which makes others want to agree with them.
Since these days I primarily think of social networking within the context of my HRIS class, I imagine that Gladwell's "few" are the driving force behind advances in social collaboration and HRM. They are the ones to naturally be in the forefront of use, knowledge, and persuasion.
This leads me to wonder.....Are the people actively engaged in on-line social networks those who tend to be socially connected out in the world anyway? Or, does the new technology allow people who aren't natural networkers to be more active that they would otherwise? I know that we are changing the nature of interactions, but are people changing too? I don't have any answers, but I'm intrigued by the questions. I'd be interested to learn what others think about this.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Twitterpated
I experienced my first tweet chat last night and it was an interesting experience for me. I definitely felt like the shy kid in the back of the classroom again! I'm still getting used to the lingo used in twitter so I didn't always get it, but it was interesting to lurk. I am going to go back and check out some of the links that other people provided; looked like some interesting information to investigate. Bravo to my many classmates who jumped right in and participated!
I got stuck at work late yesterday afternoon so I had to be "in class" at the office. It was really distracting for me (people kept interrupting me). I misread a couple of the quiz questions (so much for multi-tasking!) which bummed me out. But, I learned something interesting about my co-workers.....As people noticed that I was on twitter, I got a lot of negative feedback. I was very surprised that every college student that wandered through was not active in the Twitter world. I thought everyone was doing it! It helped me better understand the resistance I've gotten to the idea of using yammer as an alternative to e-mail. I honestly thought it would be an easy sell. People seem to think that facebook, e-mail & IM are enough right now. But I'll keep working on my colleagues. We are hiring a new communications coordinator next week, so hopefully s/he will be excited by the idea of expanding our collaborative capabilities. We'll see.
I got stuck at work late yesterday afternoon so I had to be "in class" at the office. It was really distracting for me (people kept interrupting me). I misread a couple of the quiz questions (so much for multi-tasking!) which bummed me out. But, I learned something interesting about my co-workers.....As people noticed that I was on twitter, I got a lot of negative feedback. I was very surprised that every college student that wandered through was not active in the Twitter world. I thought everyone was doing it! It helped me better understand the resistance I've gotten to the idea of using yammer as an alternative to e-mail. I honestly thought it would be an easy sell. People seem to think that facebook, e-mail & IM are enough right now. But I'll keep working on my colleagues. We are hiring a new communications coordinator next week, so hopefully s/he will be excited by the idea of expanding our collaborative capabilities. We'll see.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Strategic Planning.....Tour de France
I'm proud to report that I was on the relative forefront of social networking technology during the brainstorming sessions of my organization's annual strategic planning retreat last Thursday. We were discussing ways in which to expand recruitment efforts to increase the diversity of our student population and to better orient new members into the residential communities as soon as possible. While admittedly we are dealing with our client base of college students, some of the networking strategies that we've talked about to better connect and communicate with employees can also be utilized here. Let's look at modeling some of aspects of new member orientation from employee on-boarding strategies (productive members? productive employees? similar). Let's use the web as a means of getting our current members to connect with potential new members (u-tube, blogs). Want to increase feedback mechanisms from our current membership? (Rypple, blogs). My younger colleagues were impressed that I was willing to make these suggestions. Of course, the next step for me is to be help actually implement these things. At least I see them as viable options.
On a "what do you do in your free time" note, I'm not a big July 4th celebrant; my favorite parts of July are my daughter's birthday (21 in a week!!) and the annual Tour de France, which began on Saturday. When I was immersing myself in Tour details, I came across an article about how the riders use Web 2.0 technology. There are web-based coaching tools (such as Ridefast.com) that allow an athlete to track their training progress and communicate with their coaches. The writer noted that Lance Armstrong trains primarily in Europe or in Texas, but his coach lives and works in Colorado. They do most of their communication through Web & e-mail. They can both use the web-based training program at different locations in order to share instant feedback. I also read that a couple of stages of the Tour are to be done this year without the normal communication devices which allow the rider to communicate with their teams while out on the road (going retro). It will be interesting to see if it makes any difference in riders' tactics. Of course, I'm happy the web provides so much information about the race and the riders throughout the two-week event. Maybe some day I'll be able to go to France and watch it first-hand.....Until then, at least I have tivo and the web.
On a "what do you do in your free time" note, I'm not a big July 4th celebrant; my favorite parts of July are my daughter's birthday (21 in a week!!) and the annual Tour de France, which began on Saturday. When I was immersing myself in Tour details, I came across an article about how the riders use Web 2.0 technology. There are web-based coaching tools (such as Ridefast.com) that allow an athlete to track their training progress and communicate with their coaches. The writer noted that Lance Armstrong trains primarily in Europe or in Texas, but his coach lives and works in Colorado. They do most of their communication through Web & e-mail. They can both use the web-based training program at different locations in order to share instant feedback. I also read that a couple of stages of the Tour are to be done this year without the normal communication devices which allow the rider to communicate with their teams while out on the road (going retro). It will be interesting to see if it makes any difference in riders' tactics. Of course, I'm happy the web provides so much information about the race and the riders throughout the two-week event. Maybe some day I'll be able to go to France and watch it first-hand.....Until then, at least I have tivo and the web.
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