Enterprise 2.0 Questions - Social Networks a waste of time ?
Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 18:13 
In his blogpost of June last year, Andrew McAfee listed "some questions you might get asked" related to the use of social media within the corporate world (Enterprise 2.0)...
I already gave my answer to one of the questions listed there about the use of internal blogs. Today I am trying to answer another one in his original list; one about social networks...
Will people just use social networking software to plan happy hour, rather than to get work done?
This almost exact question came on during a recent presentation I gave to Human Resource Managers about social media, just last week... So Andrew, you're right about those questions, they do come up ! ;-)
Here's my take on this one:
Internal social networks are already a fact within companies... People gather for a coffee, talk during lunch, meet up to see "how things are going" etc... They are part of the social fabric & most corporate cultures respect and support them.
So for one, I don't see why this would be so different if and when these networks happen online within the organisation. I would imagine it could even be an added bonus to international or geographically disperse companies. Employees connecting with colleagues far away...
But like most of these new tools, social networks tend to be seen as "not serious", "more play than work" etc...
The questions to ask are;
Where is the business value, the social value and do these 2 interconnect at my company.
Do I value the fact that my employees have the possibility to connect across business units, official organisation charts and positions ? Do I promote cross company, cross cultural networking as a source of innovation ?
Because let's face it - your colleagues are already creating online networks on Facebook & LinkedIn and in most cases it is not to lynch the company, on the contrary, it is because they have a sense of being connected through the organisation they work for.
Again, it is about setting down guidelines, agree on usage and put the tool - in this case internal social networks - within the company and employee context.
Explain how and why the tool can add value - both to the company & the employee (effectiveness, productivity, reduction of search time, creation of virtual teams etc...) and you will probably be positively surprised.
What do you think ?
