When I first heard of the concept of enterprise social computing, it hearkened me back to the days when my biggest problem at work was the fact that I had to sit in a cubicle all day long. My business world was that maze of cubicles awkwardly arranged around an over sized copy machine and a water cooler. If I needed something—anything really—I could simply holler over the grayish half wall and the answer would present itself from one of my colleagues.The only way to make contact with the outer world was the black phone sitting on the corner of your desk.
Oh, how things have changed! We live in a much more dynamic world than we did even fifteen years ago, and the business world has not been spared. We are a fast paced world fueled on the consumption of information in real time. The business of today does not just manage roomfuls of cubed in employees, but rather hundreds and thousands of workers scattered across the globe, armed with many and varied forms of technology.However, the one thing that has not changed is the need for employees to be informed and connected.This is where you will start to hear about the enterprise social computing concept.
Global businesses are constantly tasked with the challenge of maintaining a workforce that has answers, or at least access to answers, 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Many forms of social software can provide this type of inter connectivity; a solution that allows employees to quickly find both the necessary information and the right people that are required to do their jobs.
Again, this is not as easy as hollering over the cubicle at your buddy, hoping he can supply you with the right numbers. You need to be able to efficiently barrel through the droves of other streams of information, which are always within a finger tap of an iPhone, and find exactly what you are looking for. Enterprise social computing lets you target specific information or people, so that you get regular updates on information you actually need. Not only that, it can also allow you to quickly and securely exchange information with anyone within your organization.So now when I yell across my little cubicle wall here in San Diego, if I had a colleague in China, they could not only hear me but respond quickly.
Perhaps the biggest advantage though is the fact that this interconnectedness is completely secure. Technology, along with the sheer expansiveness of global business, has brought with it some unique security challenges. Imagine the heads of these huge corporations trying to sleep at night knowing all this information—trade secrets, sensitive financial information, etc.— was out there ready to be hijacked.While this is probably not the only think keeping them up at night, enterprise social computing can at least take away some of the worry.
The fact of the matter is, that there is too much information out there; and I’m all for a system that puts the right information in my hands at the right time.While all this is true, there are times when you need to leave the 3-sided world of your computer and get off the grid.
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