Community

• Blogs
  • Expert Blogs
  • Community Blogs
  • Create a Blog Entry
• Discussions
  • Start a Discussion
• Job Center
• Chapters

Silver Bullet - Real Social Networking Enterprise Value

• 
• 
• 
• 

Ubiquitous, contextual expertise location aligned with user's daily activities provides quantifiable value to businesses.  In the endless quest for Enterprise 2.0 measurable value this is a silver bullet.  As an organization grows, the value that an automated, contextual expertise location technology grows.  This is made possible through a powerful synergy between social analytics and business intelligence - identifying experts based on their activity history related to content contribution activities.  This enables platforms to serve relevant business connections to users on a silver platter.  No complex explanation needs to be provided to end users, as the functionality is baked into an existing user experience.

Justification
The value resides in time savings.  Let’s take a look at the breakdown of the difference between what happens on the commercial web vs the enterprise to frame this discussion.

Commercial
Within the commercial web people are seeking social connections.  There are few constraints placed on this activity and it can happen as needed.

Enterprise
Users need knowledge to solve problems.  A user might have a report that needs to be completed before 5PM and they need to connect with an expert immediately.

Much as an online corporate staff directory is an invaluable tool, generally being the most accessed internal web system within organizations, in-context expert suggestions provide functionality that it will soon be hard to live without.  For any task that a knowledge worker is involved with, it reduces the cycle time to finding answers to help complete the task and the amount of overall communication that needs to occur in the process.

Hard, Quantifiable Value
1. Reduce content location time - experts are now integrated into views that provide browsing and search capability.  When researching complex topics, direct connections to experts can help to drastically expedite processes.

2. Reduced employee onboarding time - within large organizations onboarding can be immensely challenging for new employees.  As the new employees browse and search for materials to assist in their jobs, the "time to proficiency" can be reduced.

3. Reduced communication cycles - instead of spending hours emailing various people within an organization trying to connect with an authoritative source on a topic, the user is presented with people who can assist immediately, with relevant knowledge to solve the task or issue at hand.

Enterprise Social Platform Evolution
Social analytics are nothing new on the commercial web (Facebook / LinkedIn "you may know these people"), but in the enterprise the combination of this data and business intelligence can be groundbreaking.  It gives users a leg up accessing the right knowledge at the right time - whether they have been with a company for one week or one year.

This post and comment(s) reflect the personal perspectives of community members, and not necessarily those of their employers or of AIIM International