Social Networking and Web 2.0 at Work - Facebook Behind the Firewall

Those of us who are used to Facebook and Linkedin have on at least one occasion thought about the potential for social networking in an Intranet environment.  We've been talking about it for some time.  We'll now we've actually put our money where our mouth is and are busy actually putting it into practice.

Instead of a public profile, you have a work profile.  Instead of walls, you have documents.  Instead of creating groups, you create and administer "workgroups".  Instead of walls, you would have wikis.  Instead of blogging to friends, it is about sharing tips and techniques with colleages and creating procedures and policy.  Corporate blogging with text, video and podcasts lets CEO's communicate with the entire company more efficiently.  Instead of finding people and networks with like interests, in the enterprise it is about finding people in the departments who have the roles and skills you need to call on to support your job on a day-to-day basis.   Instead of alerting the world as to what you are doing now, it is about finding out instantly about important notices and when things have changed.

While some companies have been busy blocking Facebook and YouTube through their IT department, we're recommending to embrace the new wave by applying it to internal communication with applications like Central.  Having these technologies internally available to your organisation and focused on work tasks means that you regain control over your staff, whilst giving them the freedom to express themselves, find things more easily and overall enjoy their job more.

This is exactly what we have created in Central Portal, which is in many ways very similar to Facebook behind the firewall, to meet the same sort of communication aims.  Above all, it should be fun and a no-brainer to use.