The intranet in the workplace today is evolving albeit at a slow (sometime very slow) rate. I remember back in the Evolution days we used it for plainly common urls, storing common forms / word / excel docs etc. that everyone would need to edit, timesheets etc.
Then we added a few CGI apps like a serial generator for Sound Studio Pro and some other legacy products. Then pictures from the company parties, outings, - when an employee passed a driving test we’d go out for a company curry - stuff like that.
Going to other small/medium companies you’d see similar intranet systems. Then for larger institutions like Trinity Laban, you see things like a huge Sharepoint system to deal with. Students and Staff still communicate via email. Things like sharing photos from parties and even of performances are limited to the realms of Facebook and email.
Where/how Social Networking can fit
By no means the only way. Social Networking can solve many more problems than described here. Here are some things social networking can help.
Enhanced communication
Sure, if you want to get in touch with someone, the phone seems the quickest way, email for detailed instructions etc. But for a log of opinions and sharing information in the work place, to me social networking can really help here. (I seem to remember tons of talks about flattening organisational structures which social networking can help with from classes gone by)
Common places
It helps because there’s a simple place where I can go back and find a nugget of information. Ever tried to find that elusive email that you accidentally deleted? Good social networking products also provide a level of hierarchy to the information, just like intranet apps.
Ease of use
Always a tricky one. Ease of use is entirely a subjective experience.
I like to take a general view on this, the whole web 2 world is finding it’s conventions, gradually people become used to those conventions from the web 1 days: forums, blogs, photo galleries and albums, to the web 2 terms, walls, pokes, waves etc. and not forgetting messaging, events, audio and video. Most Joe knows how to use IM programs like MSN and Skype too - in the same way these apps use similar conventions, so do the good social networking sites.
Good social networking sites make these conventional ideas familiar to their users (should they choose to use them). And users who are familiar with these web things/widgets/paradigms should find that they are interchangeable between products.
It is for that rambling reason that I think social networking would make intranets easier to use because before, users had to know publishing tools and maybe a little HTML, now, all they need to know is how to use a social network, if they’ve learned one, those skills are pretty much interchangeable.
Challenges
For those companies wanting to brave developing a social networking product for intranets, I think there are a few things to bare in mind.
Choose battles wisely
Unless you’re working on some monolithic Master Uber System. Don’t assume your product will manage every aspect of a company’s intranet.
When I went around Documation UK expo last year (a very dull experience, believe me). I was astounded by how many companies were trying to be all things to all people. This lead to terrible interfaces, ugly complex systems which would make anyone who just wants to enter a contact into an address book just scream. Having to type loads of pointless metadata into documents just to make it searchable and look nice in a query isn’t anyone’s idea of fun.
Do what you’re good at and do it well. And integrate….
Integration
I think this is going to be a key deciding factor for most businesses. Because we’re not trying to be everything to everyone, the challenge isn’t providing every feature under the blue moon but providing modular integration with those technologies that are widespread. (And those which are awesome)
No business likes to spend money and time integrating their existing corporate infrastructure with any product, so we should focus on doing a lot of this ourselves. I can think of some right now which are probably very obvious from a web 2/social networking app’s perspective:
Active Directory - remote and local sync of passwords/details etc. And if someone could come out with an OpenID <> Active Directory provider sync service too, please contact me, I’d love to use it. I guess it could be fairly easy to do, maybe hook IIS with Windows authentication to an open id page, must research this.
XYZ Instant Messenger - particularly if the company’s got a distributed workforce, good im integration, using technologies like Jabber is useful.
Calendar integration
Other office productivity tool integration.
Other web 2 integration - this part needs particular attention. After all, we’re trying to bring the benefits of current/next gen web technologies to intranets inside the firewall.
Search integration - I’m not talking here about making a search engine, but instead, about making a product indexable by internal spiders.
Benefits
As described in where/how social networking can fit, plus, folks tend to be happier if there’s a place they can communicate about issues, be they social or professional or both. Intranet based social networking keeps this communication private, away from others but at the same time, opens up management and levels the playing field with employees.
Information is valuable, no matter where it’s stored. This blog post aside, think about the potential information you can find out from colleagues about an idea or product suggestion from a simple wall comment or photo.
misc
It’s been a ramble, but there’s a point in this post somewhere. These are initial thoughts, though I hope you’ll agree with most of them, naturally.