Social Networking

Photo courtesy of BrandDignityOpens in new window Social networking is an extension of blogs and wikis. Social networking sites provide an unprecedented peer-to-peer communication channel where people interact in an online community, sharing personal and professional information and photos, producing and sharing all sorts of ideas and opinions.

Encouraging and facilitating the sharing of tacit knowledgeOpens in new window isn’t easy. Despite the fact that companies have spent billions on software and other technology for knowledge managementOpens in new window, there is some indication that knowledge sharing has fallen short of managers’ goals.

For instance, 60 percent of employees surveyed by a Harris poll said work was often duplicated in their organizations because people were unaware of one another’s work.

54 percent said their companies missed opportunities to innovate because of poor collaboration and information sharing, and 51 percent said managers regularly made poor decisions because employee knowledge isn’t effectively tapped.

A recent approach that holds promise for more effective sharing of tacit knowledge is the use of social media, including corporate social networking and other social technology tools such as blogs and wikis.

The simplicity and informality of blogs make them an easy and comfortable medium for people to communicate and share ideas. In addition, the microblogging service Twitter is increasingly being used by companies as a fast way to solve problems. People can send a question and quickly get responses all over the organization or from outsiders.

Rather than simply sharing opinions and ideas as with a blog, wikis are free-form, allowing people to edit what they find on the site and add content.

At Rosen LawOpens in new window, a Raleigh, North Carolina-based law firm, managers moved all contracts, court orders, case files, and other documents to a secure wiki. If people see a better way to organize information, they go ahead and do it. Lawyers and paralegals, for instance, have different needs, so the two groups edited one another’s entries until both were happy with certain categorizations.

Because of the popularity of Facebook in people’s personal lives, most employees are comfortable with the idea of “following” and communicating with their colleagues online.

Using social networks for a business enables people to easily connect with one another across organizational and geographical boundaries based on professional relationships, shared interests, problems, or other criteria.

A Symantec salesman in Dubai created a group on the company’s social network that exchanges sales tips from employees around the world.

People can use the social network to search for tags that will identify others with knowledge and resources that can help them solve a problem or do their jobs better. Moreover, the nature of social networking builds trust so that people are more likely to cooperate and share information.

Many organizations, from small entrepreneurial firms and nonprofit agencies to huge corporations, are experimenting with using social media for business purposes. One organization that has implemented a clearly thought-out social media strategy is CognizantOpens in new window.

At CognizantOpens in new window, social mediaOpens in new window is used to create a learning and knowledge-sharing environment for both its employees and its partners and clients. As stated on the company’s website, the high-level use of social media enables Cognizant to “access the specialized skills of our deep talent pool from anywhere in the world, to solve any problem.” Clients and industry experts agree that this approach has given Cognizant a competitive advantage in its industry.