By Timothy Fisher | Article Rating: |
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March 28, 2008 12:59 AM EDT | Reads: |
1,492 |

Today, social networking, and user-generated content web sites are among the
most popular sites on the Internet getting millions of hits every day. Sites
like MySpace, Facebook, Flickr,
and Google Apps allow users to share user-generated
content and collaborate with each other like never before. Smart organizations,
enterprises, and product vendors are now realizing the potential for
Web 2.0 technologies inside the enterprise.
There are some fantastic web applications on the Internet that would provide
tremendous value inside of an organization. I’ve spent the last several years
working for large professional services organizations. These large service organizations
have perhaps the most to gain from harnessing the concepts of Web 2.0 internally.
Consider for example an internal Intranet version
of an application like LinkedIn, allowing employees to keep current resume and profile
information online that can be easily updated by each employee. This would provide a huge value to
professional service organizations whom are always looking to staff the next project or fill
a clients staffing requirements.
For the developers of a large organization, think how useful an internal Code
Snippets site would be. Public snippets sites such as DZone Snippets,
allow contributors
to share small snippets of code that solve commonly occurring problems. The value
of such a repository is even greater inside of an organization where different
teams often encounter similar problems. Essentially, a snippets site provides
another outlet for code reuse.
In a development group, every project should be maintaining a wiki site. A wiki
can be updated by every member of the team to include links to the latest
documentation, schedules, and technical data related to the project.
Social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us also provide examples of a
technology that could be very useful internally. If you are in a large development
organization, every developer will usually have his or her favorites sites for researching
and looking up technical information. A social bookmarking site would allow your
organization to harness collectively those favorites and categorize them with a content tagging
system. Content tagging has become the preferred way or organizing large amounts of information
in the Web 2.0 world.
Even some of the fringe social sharing sites such as Shelfari
and LibraryThing
implement concepts that would fit well inside an organization. These sites allow users to
share information about their personal library of books. Users can contribute book reviews,
book ratings, and comments about the books. Software developers are some of the largest
purchasers and readers of technical books. Some organizations will even reimburse employees
for technical book purchases. A social site allowing employees to share reviews and comments about
technical books could be a very useful addition to an Intranet. These types of value-added
applications that allow employees to actively contribute content to Intranets will encourage
employees to view your Intranet and participate in sharing knowledge and information. This is much
better than the centralized content controlled sites that most Intranets are today.
One of IBM’s newest products targeted at the enterprise is
Lotus Connections. This is
a product that aims to bring Web 2.0 and social networking into the enterprise. The product
includes blogging, social bookmarking, wikis, communities, user profiles, and social networking features.
IBM is not alone in thinking about the value that these products have. Smaller vendors in this space include
HiveLive, SocialText,
and Thought Farmer.
There are new and different types of Web 2.0 and social networking sites coming online nearly
everyday. Every time I come across a new site, I always imagine how much that site could contribute
to the collaboration and knowledge sharing environment and ultimately to the productivity of
teams inside of a company. I believe that we are on the brink of seeing more and more Web 2.0
technologies entering the Enterprise. These applications can allow an enterprise to capture more
of the ad-hoc and tacit knowledge that typically is not well managed in a large organization.
If you are in a position of influence, you should start
thinking now about how these technologies can make your own organization more productive. If you
are interested in learning more about Web 2.0 in the enterprise, an excellent blog to follow is the
Enterprise 2.0 blog from Dion Hinchliffe.
Read the original blog entry...
Published March 28, 2008 Reads 1,492
Copyright © 2008 Ulitzer, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.
More Stories By Timothy Fisher
Timothy Fisher has recognized expertise in the areas of Java, Ruby, Rails, Social Media, Web 2.0, and Enterprise 2.o. He has served in technical leadership and senior architecture roles with companies such as Motorola, Cyclone Commerce, and Compuware. He is the author of the Java Phrasebook, and the Ruby on Rails Bible. Currently he is employed as a senior web architect with Compuware in Detroit, Michigan.
Follow Timothy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tfisher
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