Larry Cannell

At the North America Catalyst Conference, taking place in San Diego later this month, I will be presenting a session that addresses how social software can be used to improve worker effectiveness. It is entitled “Putting Social Software to Work: Adding Social to the Online Workplace Framework (OWF).”

The benefits of social software are often described in ambiguous language, such as “emergent behavior” or “breaking down hierarchies.” The term “Enterprise 2.0” is a little better, although it is usually defined in terms of the technologies involved (e.g., blogs, wikis, social networks, microblogging, etc.).

While social software can enable emergent collaboration, influence how people are organized, and includes a number of technologies, these aspects do little to help IT describe how social software improves the business. If IT doesn’t describe these improvements within a bigger picture then we risk phrasing problems in terms of tools, chasing the latest fad, talking in broad terms that are not specific enough to our business, and generally look as if we don’t add value to the enterprise.

The challenge is aligning social software with the goal of getting work done. In this Catalyst session we will:

• Outline the concept of online workplaces, show how they can support the business and position them within an intranet stack
• Describe the components of online workplaces, highlighting those that support how we work and provide the information we need to get our work done
• Map social software to the components of an online workplace
• Describe a method for measuring online workplace effectiveness

See you in San Diego.

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Category: Uncategorized     Tags: cat10, enterprise 2.0, owf, social software

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