According to Business Week, this is what the big companies are now doing, ie providing an internal social networking alternative.
By luring employees into a network, companies hope to leverage their skills and contacts. But they also hope that all that collaboration will cut out time that’s now spent mailing documents and e-mailing comments.
A bit optimistic perhaps. Seems questionable whether such homegrown facebook alternatives will actually provide a substitute for the real thing or just an additional channel. And how comprehensive is Sharepoint in any case?
Why reinvent the wheel though? Why not just use Facebook? Round at ours we are considering starting a staff group, which people would voluntarily join, with a news feed application which people could choose to have. This was the topic of much discussion at an Internal Comms shindig in London yesterday – opinion was divided between those who didn’t want to have their boss as ‘their friend’ and those who thought that differential access permissions were designed for just such a purpose. Apparently Government departments are now shutting down access to Facebook – this seems daft when such networks at… Read more »