Online Social Networks Blog Post

Online Social Networks

Blog post 1: How Web 2.0 Technologies Are Changing Collaboration

The cumulative impact of social networking technologies on organizational performance has accelerated in the last three years due to the increasing performance of social media applications, greater depth of system and process integration, and the inclusion of the design principles learned in social networks being engrained in enterprise applications (McKay, 2011). Having started with Web 2.0 design objectives as defined by Tim O'Reilly, which are shown in Figure 1, Web 2.0 Technologies Meme Map (O'Reilly, 2006) and progressing today to include the design attributes of contextual search and semantic web content analysis (Kavanagh, 2010) which is being called Web 3.0, social networking technologies are a major disruptive force in organizations. It is up to the management teams of companies how they choose to react this collection of disruptive technologies, either marshaling them for greater productivity or treating them as a massive distraction and missing their inherent benefits (Kavanagh, 2010).

Figure 1: Web 2.0 Technologies

Source: http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html

Slowly enterprise applications and the business processes they support are also changing to reflect the design objectives shown in Figure 1. Over the next three to five years it is expected that the majority of enterprise applications will have more collaborative and communications-driven applications that allow for create cooperation trust being formed within and between companies (Bernoff, Li, 2008). This is the essence of what the four primary functions of social software are including communication, collaboration, cooperation and connection based approaches to defining functionality and application performance (McAfee, 2006). The greater the integration of social networking-based functionality into enterprise applications, the greater the potential to completely redefine the process workflows and strategies of a company over time (Beck, 2011). This will result in significant cost reductions while accelerating a strong focus on customer value and service in all aspects of a company's value chain (McAfee, 2006).

Blog Post 2: How Enterprise 2.0 is Changing Customer Relationship Management

Microsoft SharePoint and applications like it were the initial efforts on the part of enterprise software companies to bridge the gap in usability, collaboration and communication within companies through the use of portal-based software (Platt, 2010). These initial efforts were successful in incorporating the design objectives and initial lessons learned by Dr. Andrew McAfee of MIT and his work in enterprise 2.0 technologies and their effects on organizational productivity and performance (McAfee, 2006). These initial efforts at creating applications that could replicate the goals of social networks including communication, collaboration, communication and enabling connections throughout a company were critical to the overall success of the initial enterprise-wide adoption of these early attempts at creating enterprise-wide portals. SharePoint provided the necessary levels of system-wide intelligence to enable collaboration and communication yet lacked the ability to be flexible enough to match ongoing business processes and strategies as they rapidly changed over time. This was one of the biggest downfalls of initial enterprise-wide collaboration applications over time (Kavanagh, 2010).

The following generation collaboration platforms based on social CRM platforms and initiatives were designed to provide for greater agility and ability to support complex customer-facing strategies, processes and programs (Beck, 2011). It is ironic that the integration of social networking data into CRM systems has actually led to the development of a more intra-organizational platform for ensuring a higher level of collaboration and performance within companies instead (McKay, 2011). Based on this finding from early adopters of CRM applications based on social networking data and relationship mapping, it was ascertained that these tools could be used internally and external to an organization with equal success (Beck, 2011). This is unique because CRM is often oriented only to the exterior, customer-facing areas of organizations, not necessarily designed to support the internal workflows and collaboration processes many companies rely on over time. The maturation of collaborative platforms within companies has also led to the development of entirely new approaches to defining metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate the performance of strategies and programs internally and externally as well (Beck, 2011). These areas of analytics will continue to accelerate in terms of importance over time, as the acquisition of Radian6 by Salesforce.com last week for over $300M signaled a shift in the CRM vendors' strategy to quantify the value of social networking over time. Salesforce.com is a leading provider of hosted CRM systems on the SaaS platform and has been one of the leading vendors creating social networking-based applications for business customers. Their acquisition of Radian6 signals a view they have of metrics and measuring performance of social media applications being critical to the long-run success of their business. This also signals a shift in the market Dr. McAfee wrote about in the context of Enterprise 2.0, which is the observation of collaboration, communication, cooperation and strength of coordination will eventually be quantified and reported on from a metrics standpoint over time (McAfee, 2006).

Blog Post 3: Charting the Transition to Web 3.0: Why Contextual Search and Semantics Matter More Than Ever

From the highly collaborative nature of Web 2.0, which is in the midst of a transition to Web 3.0, which includes contextual search and semantically defined Web applications (Kavanagh, 2010), enterprises are in for a major series of disruptive innovations in the context of enterprise computing in the next several years (Bernoff, Li, 2008). Semantic and contextual search will redefine how enterprises manage their many diverse databases, systems of record, and the many forms of content that pervade throughout a business. The role of semantic web applications and contextual search will also lead to the development of entirely new knowledge systems for managing customer relationships, making it possible to get a true 360-degree view of all activity (Beck, 2011). This will also lead to the development of Web Services that will lead to an entirely new level of disruptive innovation occurring in how customer requirements are capturing and transformed into new products and services as well. The concept of a true customer listening system based on Web Services technologies will be attainable with semantic and contextual search being pervasive across the Web. The same will hold true in enterprises where Web Services that can unify and parse through massive amounts of data to define contextual meaning will become more commonplace as well (McAfee, 2006). The long-term effects are that the data companies rely on will increasingly be used for efficiently and in context more than ever before.