Social networking is not the enemy

The Enterprise 2.0 Conference began this week in Santa Clara, California – and there are a host of organizations (including the U.S. Department of State) only too ready to preach about the benefits of social networking in the workplace.

Social networking – or rather software that enhances communication and collaboration through identity-orientated connections (i.e. the user) – is the trend of the moment. Steve Wylie, General Manager of the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, thinks the mood has changed incredibly in just a few years.

"It's no longer a question of 'do I need to have a social strategy?' It's how quickly can we get our social strategy formulated and executing."

Forrester, the research firm has tipped ‘Collaboration/Web 2.0/social media as a top technology trend impacting on enterprises over the next two years, second only to mobile devices and apps.

The firm also states in its report that collaborative platforms are now focusing on people rather than documents – interaction and sharing knowledge is seen as a means to improved productivity. Social networking is predicted to promote collaboration and the aim is to merge this into the business.

The conference looks into business areas where ‘social makes sense,’ such as Human Resources. Wylie explains. “The amount of information that gets lost …or gets stuck inside e-mail archives, is enormous," he said. "And if businesses understood the impact of that, they would all be jumping on collaborative solutions to help fend that off."

Human Resources Meets Enterprise 2.0 and the Cloud was discussed in Santa Clara this week – businesses now know, if you can’t beat them join them – social networking is not the enemy.