Social networking is starting (really) to make sense for business

The story: Intranets were the rage five years ago, but all too many gather moss as old data sits without an update. Social networking, once the province of the young and the hip, could fill the need to connect employees and leverage knowledge across the enterprise.

Yes, you’ve heard that social-networking-in-business promise before, but it is now coming true. Deloitte has D Street, Microsoft sports TownSquare, IBM has used the BluePages for years, and Best Buy hosts the BlueShirt Nation.

“Many of the corporate social networks are modeled after Facebook,” says Ross Dawson, chairman of the consultancy Future Exploration Network. Facebook’s breakthrough was the ability for users to stay in touch with friends and easily share updated information with a wide circle of acquaintances. And with younger employees already enthusiastic users of social networking tools, it makes sense to offer similar capabilities at work. 

At far-flung IBM, the BluePages social networking application integrates standard directory information and back-end applications that allow users to find other employees who have worked on a particular project or have developed a particular set of skills. “It’s the most searched-on application in the company,” says Suzanne Minassian, a product manager for IBM’s Lotus Social Software.

Indeed, the application was so useful internally it inspired IBM to monetize it, building a social networking application called Lotus Connections on top of the Notes platform. It has become the company’s fastest-growing software application, says Minassian.

D Street, like TownSquare, is built on the Microsoft SharePoint platform, says Dawson, while BlueShirt Nation is built on Drupal, the open source content management system. Financial service giants UBS, Wachovia, and Morgan Stanley have also deployed social networking tools, he adds.

With a layout that is strikingly similar to Facebook.com’s (in which Microsoft invested $240 million in October 2007), TownSquare is fueled by enterprise news feeds that use Web services to query SharePoint for public information, such as promotions and company anniversaries, about an employee. TownSquare also notifies users when a document or file is modified. Users can customize their feeds and monitor who is receiving information about them.

Some businesses use Facebook internally, but there are obvious security issues; WorkLight, an Israeli software developer, has had some success with WorkBook, an application that lets employees set up secure areas within various social networking platforms. 

Even so, many executives have yet to be convinced. “Businesses aren’t lined up around the corner to deploy social networking, but we are at the point where they are intrigued,” says Gil Yehuda, a senior analyst at Forrester Research.

The bottom line: Don’t be afraid to be cool. Social networking can be an important tool for your business, and you might even impress your kids.

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