Companies Are Erecting In-House Social Networks

Hi all,

While preparing for our debate “Social Networks will become the most important drivers for organizational success” I came along an interesting article posted by the New York Times in June 2011.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/technology/27social.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

To summarize, the article deals with the trend of implementing technical based social networks in companies while illustrating some up and down sides of it. Generally speaking, it started with the usage of social networks in “private life” (facebook, twitter and others) and became more and more important for businesses itself. Over the last years firms who provide social networks for other companies have experienced an enormous growth and follow the trend of implementing social networks. Although someone may think people are already familiar with using social networks it can still be tricky to adapt it to the corporate level because of several reasons:

1. Mis-usage of the network (private versus work related topics

2. People interact in different ways, some may be active and post information regularly whereas others are not interested in exchanging information (complication of overall information flow)

3. Corporate secretà how to store valuable company information

Although there are clearly negative aspects of using social networks within a company, it can help to make operations more efficient.

1. Easy to exchange information with people from offices in other countries

2. Be able to make information visible to everyone which would be very difficult via e-mail

3. Less meetings necessary

Personally, I really like the article as it presents a clear overview of pros and cons of social networks in a company. Reading through the article it becomes clear how important and efficient social networks can be for a company while at the same time pointing out what aspects have to be taken into consideration when doing so. Everything always has a downside somewhere but understanding these aspects in the first place helps to find ways for improvement. Doing so, it is possible that social networks in a company can become even more successful in the future.