20 things to do on a social network in the office
Last week, my Enterprise 2.0 evangelist spirit lead me to post a piece on our internal Wiki weblog (a blog exploring the value of social software) about the things I would want to do on an internal social network.
I believe that, using the collective intelligence of all people within the company should be one of the main themes in the drive for growth, efficiency and value. Actually that collective intelligence has been mostly unused to date, just lying there. Part of the answer to change that situation, is facilitating relationships and helping people connect.
On the blog I presented the result of a bit of brainstorming on my side on the things I would want to do on an internal social network (like LinkedIn or Facebook). Things that would make things easier and joyful. Things that would also make me feel more engaged to this place!
I came up with 20 of them. Anything I missed?
- Find that expert in (…any work related topic that comes to mind…) when I need them.
- Post questions to my network (for everybody to see of course).
- Locate colleagues interested in the same things as I am (and meet up for lunch!).
- Ask for opinions on a specific route for doing things (e-mail management?).
- Check out and approach the people or manager(s) at my next job position.
- Market myself within the company in the fields I am good at (personal branding).
- Keep my resume and personal information readily available for all and easy to update.
- Check out interesting projects going on (that I may be doing also and so save some time; keep me from re-inventing the wheel).
- Answer questions that actually “find me” because of my profile and network (and be rewarded for my participation!).
- Create communities of people around a specific topic to focus the individual effort and passion.
- Learn about the people around me (who I greet in the hallway but know nothing about).
- Discuss about idea’s, experiences, lessons learned, business process improvements, tools, policies, external developments.
- Being able to put out a few thoughts now and then, tag them and let them go for all to react on, learn from. And of course read your thoughts!
- Be aware of what is going around in the space I am involved with and beyond.
- Quickly learn about the (new) work and colleagues when landing in a new position.
- Find out where people are working with my educational and work experience.
- Want to know what my network knows that I should know.
- Just want to keep my list of contacts (who to approach for what?).
- Trace the person who knows that special person who knows about that particular topic.
- Hey, I would even like to post a few photo’s of ING events to share with everyone around here.
Related: my other Enterprise 2.0 articles
Technorati tags: Social Network, Enterpriseweb2.0, Enterprise2.0, Web 2.0, Internal Blogging
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posted Dec 23, 10:23 pm on Dec 23, 2007 |
category: Enterprise 2.0
/ Social software
I’ve read and commented it @our internal wiki ;-)
— Alexander van de Cruijs Dec 23, 10:44 pm #
Hi Alexander,
I know you did and should have added your comment on the “status indicator”, but 20 was a nice number here. I will add it here within a few days. First let’s see if more people add something.
Thanks for stopping by! Btw: Are you on Twitter?
Marcel
— Marcel Dec 23, 10:55 pm #
Hi Marcel,
thanks for your list. And even more for your comment that reminds me to follow you :-)
Frank
— Frank Hamm Dec 24, 10:59 am #
Thoughtful post, thanks for sharing.
Here’s a quibble about that term you are using, “collective intelligence.” I don’t like it. Sounds like communism.
The promises of Web 2.0 are not about collectivizing or aggregating intelligence. They are instead about empowering individuals to collaborate. New forms of collaboration are the exciting new frontier.
Being more yourself in your relationships with others, and increasing the numbers of others you collaborate with, and valuing and respecting everything that makes others unique. I don’t sense anything “collective” about that.
— Robert Becker Dec 29, 06:03 pm #
Hi Robert,
Thanks for stopping by here and leaving that thoughful comment!
I fully agree with all you write. I am a bit surprised though, that you do not like the term “collective intelligence”, because to me personally it rather well describes what I intend and why I am pushing some people around to facilitate social network tools. Of course everything is based on individual contribution and tapping into social networks: no socialism or communism is meant with that!
Maybe something like “being smart together” is a better statement of what I am looking for?
— Marcel Dec 30, 10:45 pm #
Back in the 1990s during the knowledge management craze we called this expertise profiling.
Expertise profiling was about knowing who knows what and who’s working on what, so that the questions that mattered got to the right people. George Por did some fundamental work on this back then but was always too abstract and academic for my taste.
With the evolution of blogging and collaborative tools, the time may be right for some of these ways-of-working that didn’t fly (for whatever reason) back in the knowledge management days.
— Mark Dixon Jan 3, 05:35 pm #
Hi Marcel,
for me it’s interesting to know that you are thinking and working on the Enterprise 2.0 thing at ING Group.
-Tim— Tim Schlotfeldt Jan 4, 11:54 am #
@Mark: thanks for adding that nice historical context to my post. You are quite right I believe, that KM gets it’s second chance now with E2.0, by way of facilitating individual, voluntary contributions, aggregating them and efficiently distributing it to those that need the information.
@Tim: I left a comment (including an interesting link) on your blog. Maybe that gives you some information already
Both of you: thanks for stopping by here and leaving your comment!
Marcel
— Marcel Jan 6, 08:02 pm #
Hello Marcel,
we work just on a Widget which exactly adress these 20 points you listed – 100% fit, crazy. If you still have additional recommendation or requirements – welcome. The first prototype is realized already.
Input welcome!
Dieter
— Dieter Jan 25, 03:44 pm #