Enterprise social software - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Enterprise social software (also known as or regarded as a major component of Enterprise 2.0
Enterprise 2.0
Enterprise 2.0 is the use of "Web 2.0" technologies within an organization to enable or streamline business processes while enhancing collaboration - connecting people through the use of social-media tools. Enterprise 2.0 aims to help employees, customers and suppliers collaborate, share, and...

), comprises social software

Social software

Social software applications include communication tools and interactive tools. Communication tools typically handle the capturing, storing and presentation of communication, usually written but increasingly including audio and video as well. Interactive tools handle mediated interactions between a...

as used in "enterprise

Business

A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...

" (business

Business

/commercial

Commerce

While business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...

) contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to corporate intranet

Intranet

An intranet is a computer network that uses Internet Protocol technology to securely share any part of an organization's information or network operating system within that organization. The term is used in contrast to internet, a network between organizations, and instead refers to a network...

s and other classic software platforms used by large companies to organize their communication

Communication

Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...

. In contrast to traditional enterprise software

Enterprise software

Enterprise software, also known as enterprise application software , is software used in organizations, such as in a business or government, contrary to software chosen by individuals...

, which imposes structure prior to use, enterprise social software tends to encourage use prior to providing structure.

Carl Frappaolo and Dan Keldsen defined Enterprise 2.0 in a report written for Association for Information and Image Management

Association for Information and Image Management

The Association for Information and Image Management or AIIM is a non-profit organization that provides education, research, and best practices for document management and enterprise content management...

(AIIM) as "a system

System

System is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole....

of web

World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...

-based technologies

Technology

Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...

that provide rapid and agile collaboration, information sharing, emergence and integration capabilities in the extended enterprise".

Terminology

The term "enterprise social software" generally describes this class of tools. As of 2006, "Enterprise 2.0" had become a catchier term, sometimes used to describe social and networked changes to enterprises, which often includes social software

Social software

(but may transcend social software, social collaboration and software).

The phrase Enterprise Web 2.0 sometimes refers to the introduction and implementation within an enterprise of Web 2.0

Web 2.0

The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...

technologies, including rich Internet application

Rich Internet application

A Rich Internet Application is a Web application that has many of the characteristics of desktop application software, typically delivered either by way of a site-specific browser, via a browser plug-in, independent sandboxes, extensive use of JavaScript, or virtual machines...

s, providing software as a service

Software as a Service

Software as a service , sometimes referred to as "on-demand software," is a software delivery model in which software and its associated data are hosted centrally and are typically accessed by users using a thin client, normally using a web browser over the Internet.SaaS has become a common...

, and using the web as a general platform.

Functionality

Social software for an enterprise must (according to Andrew McAfee, Associate Professor, Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...

) have the following functionality to work well :

Search: allowing users to search for other users or content
Links: grouping similar users or content together
Authoring: including blogs and wikis
Tags: allowing users to tag
Tag (metadata)
In online computer systems terminology, a tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information . This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching...

content
Extensions: recommendations of users; or content based on profile
Signals: allowing people to subscribe to users or content with RSS feeds

(Ref: McAfee, Andrew, P. "Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration" (MIT Sloan Management Review), Spring 2006, Vol.47, No.3)

McAfee recommends installing easy-to-use software which does not impose any rigid structure on users. He envisages an informal roll-out, but on a common platform to enable future collaboration between areas. He also recommends strong and visible managerial

Management

Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...

support to achieve this.

In 2007 Dion Hinchcliffe expanded the list above by adding the following four functions:

Freeform function: no barriers to authorship (meaning free from a learning curve or from restrictions)
Network-oriented function, requiring web-addressable content in all cases
Social function: stressing transparency (to access), diversity (in content and community members) and openness (to structure)
Emergence function: requiring the provision of approaches that detect and leverage the collective wisdom of the community

Software examples

Yammer
Yammer
Yammer is an enterprise social network service that was launched in September 2008. Unlike Twitter, which is used for broadcasting messages to the public, Yammer is used for private communication within organizations or between organizational members and pre-designated groups, making it an example...
Jive SBS
MindShare
IBM Lotus Connections
IBM Lotus Connections
IBM Connections is a proprietary Web 2.0 social software application developed by the Lotus Software division of IBM. The goal of Lotus Connections is to empower companies to be more innovative and help them execute more quickly by using dynamic networks of co-workers, partners and customers...
Microsoft SharePoint
Microsoft SharePoint
Microsoft SharePoint is a web application platform developed by Microsoft. First launched in 2001, SharePoint is typically associated with web content management and document management systems, but it is actually a much broader platform of web technologies, capable of being configured into a wide...
Clearvale by BroadVision
Broadvision
BroadVision is an international software vendor of self service web applications for enterprise social software, electronic commerce, Enterprise Portals, CRM....
Cisco Quad

Specific social software tools which programmers have adapted for enterprise use include:

hypertext
Hypertext
Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the...

and unstructured search
Search engine technology
Modern web search engines are complex software systems using the technology that has evolved over the years. There are several categories of search engine software: Web search engines , database or structured data search engines , and mixed search engines or enterprise search...

tools
wikis
Microblogging
Microblogging
Microblogging is a broadcast medium in the form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregate file size...
Blogs/Weblogs
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...

for storytelling
Storytelling
Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values...

and sharing personal knowledge and experiences
enterprise social bookmarking for tagging
Knowledge tags
A knowledge tag is a type of meta-information that describes or defines some aspect of an information resource . Knowledge tags are more than traditional non-hierarchical keywords or terms...

and building organizational knowledge
Knowledge management
Knowledge management comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences...
RSS
RSS (file format)
RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format...

and Activity Streams
Activity Streams
Activity Streams is an open format specification for activity stream protocols, which are used to syndicate activities taken in social web applications and services, similar to those in Facebook's Newsfeed, FriendFeed, the Movable Type Action Streams plugin, etc.Implementors of the activity...

for signaling
collaborative planning software
Collaborative planning software
Collaborative planning software helps people plan projects and activities together on the peer base. Everyone can equally contribute, assign tasks and track the progress....

for peer-based project planning and management
ideas banks for ideation (idea generation)
social networking tools
mashup
Mashup (web application hybrid)
In Web development, a mashup is a Web page or application that uses and combines data, presentation or functionality from two or more sources to create new services...

s for visualization
prediction markets for forecasting and identifying risks.
Social Profile for displaying user's Social Graph
Social graph
The social graph is a term coined by scientists working in the social areas of graph theory. It has been described as "the global mapping of everybody and how they're related"...

(Following / Following) and Activity Stream (micro-blog). Profiles may optionally display user's interests and expertise for expertise search
Social Search
Social search
Social search or a social search engine is a type of web search that takes into account the Social Graph of the person initiating the search query...

Social networking capabilities can help organization

Organization

An organization is a social group which distributes tasks for a collective goal. The word itself is derived from the Greek word organon, itself derived from the better-known word ergon - as we know `organ` - and it means a compartment for a particular job.There are a variety of legal types of...

s capture unstructured tacit knowledge

Tacit knowledge

Tacit knowledge is knowledge that is difficult to transfer to another person by means of writing it down or verbalising it. For example, stating to someone that London is in the United Kingdom is a piece of explicit knowledge that can be written down, transmitted, and understood by a recipient...

. The challenge then becomes how to distill meaningful, re-usable knowledge from other content also captured in tools such as blogs, online communities, and wikis. In 2008, companies that provide enterprise social software started introducing profile

User profile

A user profile is a collection of personal data associated to a specific user. A profile refers therefore to the explicit digital representation of a person's identity...

pages to their products, to integrate the functionality of public online communities within the enterprise. This enables knowledge workers to find others with the knowledge they may need. Large organizations find this especially useful.

Specific uses

Blogs and wikis function as collaboration

Collaboration

Collaboration is working together to achieve a goal. It is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, — for example, an intriguing endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing...

tools, and as such, they have uses mainly in sharing "unstructured" information associated with ad hoc or ongoing projects and processes, but not for "structured informational" retrieval. However, Shell

Royal Dutch Shell

Royal Dutch Shell plc , commonly known as Shell, is a global oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the fifth-largest company in the world according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine and one of the six...

has started converting its official documentation to wiki

Wiki

A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...

s, because this enables that company to make documentation updates available in real time and allows non-editors to contribute to the documentation. In this process Shell restructures the paper documents to a set of on-line wiki pages.

These applications can bring added value to company because:

It facilitates user ergonomics: navigation more suited to the user, with it, it will save time.
RSS feeds to keep employees informed of events: the contribution of the RSS is more customizable, which allows information to focus on individual interests and activities, and this, in all media, focusing inside. Some RSS readers can operate in offline mode
A wiki for the company documentation: what a service call to reach such an entity, which is the contact person for doing something, what is this abbreviation to clean work areas ...
The collaborative operation as a whole removes some traditional boundaries of hierarchy and organization
Increased interaction with customers.
Simplified integration with partners.

In the UK, BT (British Telecom) has become one of the country's strongest proponents of enterprise 2.0. The company has introduced a raft of social media

Social media

The term Social Media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,...

tools, including a huge Wikipedia-style database called BTpedia, a central blogging tool, a podcasting tool, project collaboration software and enterprise social networking

Enterprise social networking

Enterprise social networking focuses on the use of online social networks or social relations among people who share business interests and/or activities. Enterprise social networking is often a facility of enterprise social software , which is essentially social software used in "enterprise" ...

.

Business process

Business process

A business process or business method is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product for a particular customer or customers...

es often rely on access to "structured" data, potentially from a variety of sources: database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

s, and directories

Directory (databases)

Generally, a directory, as used in computing and telephony, refers to a repository or database of information which is heavily optimized for reading, under the assumption that data updates are very rare compared to data reads...

. Social technologies work to address such complexities.

The "unstructured" information provided by social technologies has proven particularly useful in business processes that lack rigid pre-definition, but where people work together in an adaptive way to innovate

Innovation

Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society...

solutions. Human interaction management

Human interaction management

Human Interaction Management is a set of management principles, patterns and techniques complementary to Business process management...

provides the theory of such processes, and the associated type of software has become known as human interaction management systems (HIMS). A HIMS can provide management control over the use of social software.

A Service Network

Service Network

A service network is a collection of people and information brought together on the internet to provide a specific service or achieve a common business objective...

exemplifies another application of enterprise social software within the context of service innovation initiatives that span academia

Academia

Academia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...

, business, and government

Government

Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

.

Enterprise search

Enterprise search

Enterprise search is the practice of making content from multiple enterprise-type sources, such as databases and intranets, searchable to a defined audience.-Enterprise search summary:...

differs from a typical web search in its focus on "use within an organization by employees seeking information held internally, in a variety of formats and locations, including databases, document management system

Document management system

A document management system is a computer system used to track and store electronic documents and/or images of paper documents. It is usually also capable of keeping track of the different versions created by different users . The term has some overlap with the concepts of content management...

s, and other repositories".

Terminology

Functionality

Software examples

Specific uses

See also

On wikis in particular