"There is a clear trend toward the adoption of social networks in the enterprise, often sparked by consumer use and the movement of Gen Y into the workplace. But how do we know if any of these social/collaboration technologies are working?"

Opening Statement

In the May 2009 issue of Cutter Benchmark Review, Mary J. Culnan and I offered our insight and analysis on social networks in the enterprise.¹ , ² The issue was based on some research we did together that found there is a clear trend toward the adoption of social networks in the enterprise, often sparked by consumer use and the movement of Gen Y into the workplace. But how do we know whether any of these social/collaboration technologies are working? Because many of the effects of collaboration are indirect and intangible, what do you measure to determine progress or whether you have been successful at all?

BLACK HOLES AND SOCIAL NETWORKS

The best analogy I have found for looking at the value of any collaboration or social technology is that of an astronomer looking for a black hole. Since black holes absorb light (very high gravity), the astronomer can't see them directly. However, he or she can detect the effect a black hole has on other astronomical objects around it, and by inference can determine the relative size and strength of the black hole, roughly where it is, how quickly it is growing, and whether it will have any impact on the astronomer.

If we look at value from collaboration or social technologies as the "black hole," the question then becomes, what tangible things do we measure to determine their intangible effects and value? How will social technologies make processes in the enterprise better or more efficient? Are there other processes, such as new product development or crisis management, that can also benefit from these collaboration and social networking technologies? If so, what do we use as the "before" measure, and how long must we wait until we see an effect? And if there is a positive effect, how do we tie it to a dollar amount?

I believe we need to look at people, process, and technology³ metrics to get a holistic or complete picture of the effects of social technologies. Unlike a database, where we are just interacting with structured data, social technologies require us to interact with other people. If those interactions start to change (or appear or disappear) because of these new technologies, they can ultimately change the structure of our organizations. So the metrics for the use and outcomes of social technologies do not come only from IT or the line of business but also from HR/organizational development and even from such cost sinks as training and support. What information is critical to determine not only if you are having a positive effect on the organization, in alignment with its goals and initiatives, but to determine whether you even want to continue in the same direction?

I challenged the authors in this issue to help us untangle this Gordian knot of social technologies, interpersonal behaviors, and critical business processes, so we can get to the heart of these issues and offer useful advice to our readers.

BALANCING RISKS AND REWARDS

In our first article, Timothy Virtue, an information security and risk management expert, examines the advent of social technologies in the enterprise and the policies that will guide them. Like me, Virtue concludes that there are far more rewards to social networks than risks that compromise them. The author invokes the idea of yin-yang from ancient Chinese philosophy, arguing that organizations must strike a balance between the opportunity social networks represent and the risks they entail. Balance is what the enterprise needs to strive for today, especially in dealing with Web 2.0, E 2.0, and social technologies.

What balance means in Virtue's eyes is that we implement social networks in the enterprise, but not in a "free for all" manner, which would invite a variety of security attacks and open the enterprise up to lawsuits as well as a variety of HR and talent issues. He recommends that we implement social networks in a secure way, but not so secure that it stifles innovation or even beneficial collaboration. Virtue challenges organizations to determine what their real risks are and how they can handle them without shutting down social technologies. He suggests that to implement social networking technologies successfully, all parts of the business (corporate management, IT, HR, legal, product groups, etc.) have to be involved in the adoption of these technologies, and that factors such as business trends, enterprise goals and objectives, the current IT environment, and regulatory requirements also need to be part of the equation.

CAPITALIZING ON SOCIAL NETWORKS

Next up, Youakim Badr and Zakaria Maamar -- computer science professors at the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (Lyon, France) and Zayed University (Dubai, UAE), respectively -- examine the ability of the enterprise to capitalize on social networks. They look at many of the enterprise's intangible assets, such as relationships among colleagues, customers, and suppliers, and argue that these have a value that can be increased through the judicious use of social networks.

The authors further propose that the enterprise does not live in an isolated environment and that collaboration, competition, and partnership are all interactions that can add value to the enterprise if they are handled efficiently and well. Some examples of enterprise use of social networks include:

• Using a customer-centric network to disseminate information about products and services to a customer's friends (a strategy known as "Friend of a Friend," or FOAF) in the hope of boosting sales

• Using a supplier-centric social network to establish a supplier's reliability

• Using a competitor-centric social network to work with a competitor and/or its allies to regulate markets and identify solutions to industry-wide problems

• Using a partner-centric social network to help identify individuals and groups the enterprise can work with to tackle complex initiatives

They also consider how to make social networks visible (through interaction or value network analysis mapping) and conclude by examining some specific social network metrics.

KEEPING IT REAL WITH ... REAL ESTATE METRICS?

Since Badr and Maamar's article ends with a discussion of social networking tools and metrics, I thought it fitting that the next article should pick up this theme and add more detail to the metrics idea -- albeit from a very different perspective. I say this because our next authors, Rachel Casanova and Sonya Dufner, are not IT folks -- rather, they work for the design firm of Perkins+Will and have many years of experience working in a holistic manner on corporate real estate projects for the firm's clients. What can they have to tell us about metrics for social networks? I'll let the authors explain:

The value of social networks -- unlike that of consumer products -- is complex, multifaceted, and difficult to measure. Metrics and measurement processes don't yet exist, but we can look for guidance to other applicable, community-based arenas where the value of relationships is measured. The field of corporate real estate is one similar venue in which innovations in the changing landscape of the workplace environment have been tested, analyzed, and benchmarked. We believe this field offers insight into effective ways to assess the potential value and evaluate the success of internal social networking efforts.

Casanova and Dufner note that, like commercial real estate projects, social networking initiatives are intended to drive cost savings, help the organization become more efficient, leverage knowledge and human capital, promote innovation, and facilitate partnerships and communication. The authors use a series of case studies to show how they've measured progress toward such goals in their projects, concluding with a "Decision Framework for the CEO" that applies their best practices to the challenge of making the case for -- and measuring the success of -- social networking efforts in the enterprise.

CROWDSOURCING: PUTTING SOCIAL NETWORKS TO WORK

In our fourth article, Carl Adams of the University of Portsmouth (UK) and Isabel Ramos of the University of Minho (Portugal) focus on crowdsourcing, which is a new way of outsourcing that draws upon the knowledge of a vast, worldwide community, often involving tasks that were once done by employees. In other words, you are asking a large, open social network to do the work that employees used to do, frequently with information that is critical to the enterprise. We're all familiar with the most famous examples of open source software development -- Wikipedia, Linux, Mozilla (Firefox), and Apache -- but here the authors look at a number of other crowdsourcing projects, ranging from sunspot activity monitoring to on-demand software testing at uTest. Adams and Ramos go on to look at innovation brokering for the enterprise and the software and support mechanisms for this.

SOCIAL NETWORKING AND BUSINESS PROCESSES

Earlier in this introduction, I talked about a holistic view for examining the value of social technologies in the enterprise. I proposed looking not only at the technologies themselves, but also at the value of the interpersonal interactions. The context for those interactions is usually some critical business process.

The final article in this issue, by Gero Decker of the Berlin-based startup Signavio and Mathias Weske of the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, looks at business processes and how to model them. Traditionally, most process models have been linear and focused on the movement of content (workflow); they don't deal with social interactions, which to me are a critical part of the process. Decker and Weske discuss how to add collaboration to process modeling, so that actual process participants can share their valuable process knowledge and experience, instead of being passive consumers of models created by "method experts." The authors introduce Signavio, a process modeling environment that enables such collaboration within enterprise social networks.

FINDING THE VALUE

In this issue, our authors offer a wide range of perspectives on social networking technologies and how to measure their impact in the enterprise. I hope their insights will help you develop -- or refine -- a social networking strategy that will yield business value for your organization.

ENDNOTES

¹ Culnan, Mary J. "If You Build It, Will They Come? Gaining Business Value from Social Networking." Cutter Benchmark Review, Vol. 9, No. 5, 2009.

² Coleman, David. "Social Networks in the Enterprise: Are You Part of the Herd?" Cutter Benchmark Review, Vol. 9, No. 5, 2009.

³ See Coleman, David, and Stewart Levine, Collaboration 2.0: Technology and Best Practices for Successful Collaboration in a Web 2.0 World (Happy About Publishing, 2008) for more about this holistic view of collaboration.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR