In the past six months, Southeastern [a UK railway operator] has leveraged Socialtext Connect, a flexible and robust developer toolset built on our REST API that enables developers to socially enable existing systems of record, such as ERP, CRM, or content management systems. The Socialtext solution, now integrated into the Southeastern infrastructure, enables employees to access train status information on the fly, in real-time with visibility across the entire workforce. By providing Southeastern with a more efficient way to share knowledge, expertise, ideas and information, the company can more quickly respond to change and serve their patrons effectively.

And you thought social inside the enterprise was all about staff telling each other what they had for lunch?

Social media technologies are making fast inroads into organisations. In the context of knowledgeintensive work the propositions of improving communication, information sharing and user involvement seem particularly promising. However, the role and impact of social technologies in enterprises in general and knowledge work in particular are still not well understood, despite emerging scholarly works in this field. In this study we aim to contribute to this stream of research. We investigate the phenomenon of Enterprise Social Networking (ESN) in the context of Professional Service Firms (PSF). Our case investigates emerging communicative work practices on the ESN platform Yammer within Deloitte Australia. We perform a genre analysis of actual communication data captured on the Yammer platform. We uncover a set of emerging practices enabled by the platform within the case company and reflect on our results in the context of the knowledge-intensive nature of professional service work. We find that Yammer in the case company has become 1) an information-sharing channel, 2) a space for crowdsourcing ideas, 3) a place for finding expertise and solving problems and most importantly 4) a conversation medium for context and relationship building.

Kai has written a short summary on his blog. But beware - this isn't a blueprint for Yammer or any other enterprise social network. Neither does it provide data on the organisational value generated by the activity observed. As Kai also points out, in the case of Deloitte Australia:

a number of knowledge-work practices are not carried out within Yammer, even though we found these practices in some of our earlier enterprise microblogging case.

However, this is a great piece of research and provides more insight into the different ways that different organisations make use of social technologies.

A very different experience here in South Australia (at least, in the department where I’m based). Rather than just an element of social networking, we went with Socialtext, an ESN platform that offers blogging, micro-blogging, wikis, groups, collaborative workspaces and a range of other features. I think the big difference is that we didn’t just install and configure the software, we took on the cultural change that is necessary to get the best out of it. Today, you’ll see the platform used for policy development, collaborative project management, social intranet, content management and a huge raft of other business activities. Growth continues and new applications for this way of working are being found on a regular basis.
Takeaway message? Enterprise Social Networking works, but it needs more than just technology and it needs the whole package to be embraced, not just tweets.

Writing in local Aussie IT news site, Delimiter, Renai LeMay reports on an article in The Register about Yammer trials by local government in Australia being abandoned. I really liked the comment above on Renai's piece that highlights how it can work, if the technology is supported and implemented in the right way. (I've blogged about that example before)

This is my comment:

I think its a little unfair to only call out Yammer on this issue, although I accept that they are fair game due to the hype that has been generated around it as a brand by both themselves and Deloitte etc. Yammer is not the only platform in this market and all the vendors (to varying degrees) recognise the need for the deployment of their tools to be supported in the way that Perry Wheeler describes. I’m currently working with a number of Australian organisations that aren’t convinced that a hands off, viral approach is the right way to do this.
Also many of the other US-based vendors in this space (tibbr, Newsgator, Jive, etc) are now investing resources into our region and I think we are only at the beginning of the mature adoption of these enterprise social computing tools. If you look carefully at Yammer, you will also see that the emphasis is now on supporting their premium paying customers to make the use of their tools more successful. Of course, none of this should come as a surprise. We’ve known that adoption of new collaboration and communication tools inside organisations can be hit and miss for decades.

Microblogging is great for maintaining a cohesive work environment among geographically dispersed offices, says James Dellow from the social business consultancy Headshift.

"With access to microblogs, executives can be in touch with what's going on across the whole organisation. In a virtual sense, the CEO is sitting next to the employee."

In the future, Dellow says enterprises will be using data analytics to pick up issues, trends, and opportunities from microblogging conversations.

I was quoted in the SMH, in an article by Cynthia Karena who was looking at the benefits of enterprise microblogging with tools like Yammer, Chatter and tibbr.

The marketplace for enterprise activity stream is a crowded one these days, with vendors all types offering solutions. This includes enterprise software company SAP, who launched their own solution back in 2009 originally in beta as 12sprints and then rebranded as StreamWork.

While there are many similarities, StreamWork is slightly different from other activity stream tools. Not surprisingly it has a strong task orientation - StreamWork primarily support two views - a main status feed and activities. Hashtags are supported, but other than activities there are no groups. It also provides an instant messaging tool.

Activities are mini-project workspaces (similar to the activities concept in IBM Connections) and you can add from a selection of StreamWork and a small selection of 3rd party widgets. These widgets help you with basic tasks and information management but there are tools to help with coordinating, deciding and analysing. For example:

• Agendas and timelines. 
• Ranking, pro-con, and cost-benefit tables. 
• Consensus votes and quick polls. 
• SWOT and responsibility matrices.

SAP appear to be positioning StreamWork as being a tool for action and one of the obvious gaps is the lack of features that support workforce engagement, informal collaboration and knowledge management.

However, I was pleasantly surprised that StreamWork provides an API and also supports OpenSocial (incidentally, Atlassian Confluence is one example of the kind of integration that is possible). There are mobile apps for the BlackBerry (of course, this is SAP) and the iPhone. Personally, I think the Web interface is better than the iPhone, which is usable but could be better.

There are a couple of case studies out there about the people who are using StreamWork:

• a 50 person humanitarian aid organisation; and 
• a Swiss furniture manufacturer.

You can take StreamWork for spin yourself by signing up for an account on the free edition.

Personally, I've found the background information on National Field a little obscure. Sure, I get the concept of how they integrate performance management into their enterprise activity streaming app and the fact it was used in Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign in Ohio does grab your attention. What I've not been so clear about it how it works in practice and in different scenarios. So, if you are familiar with tools like Yammer but haven't heard of National Field before it worth watching the video and then browse their Website (which appears to have more information about their product and clients than it did in the past).

I think NationalField may work best where there are no performance management systems already in place for a key or core activity (again, its not clear if it has an API or supports integration with other systems). I don't see any reason why other activity stream apps couldn't support the same concept, but the most common use case I've seen with other tools has been about integrating around hard process and structures. But with growing interest in embedding activity streams in task-orientated work flows, then National Field does offer a interesting vision for what this could look like. Of course it may be less compelling for industries like professional services, which while they count hours and cents the actual work isn't transactional in nature.

Perhaps the closest direct competitor might be something like Salesforce, with its tight CRM system integration through Chatter.

Are you using or have you tried National Field?

I've previously mentioned Kai's research work looking at enterprise microblogging with Yammer in companies like Cap Gemini and Deloitte. Kai has now developed a model, called the Social Network Emergence Process which he describes in this post. There is also a link to a more detailed working paper and overview presentation.

“build a Wiki and crowdsource ideas". It’s similar to Wikipedia. It involves the creation of an internet platform that enables managers and employees to add relevant information, and that information can then be edited and peer-reviewed.

Another idea is to “build an internal social network.” Employees can design their own profiles, upload images, provide useful links, add work-related content, and eventually “this will reduce the volume of email communication". In an era of email overload, that can only be a good thing.

Other than this article spreading the usual FUD about social media in the workplace (here is an alternative view), this is pretty simplistic advice for SMEs thinking about trying to proactively utilise Web 2.0 and social software.

Even large businesses struggle with the idea of creating internal Wikipedias - small businesses simply don't have the critical mass. However, there are some practical ideas (use cases) for enterprise wikis (like Atlassian Confluence):

• Managing Meetings.
• Project Management. 
• Reporting.
• Document Drafting and Commenting.
• Publishing and Maintaining Policies and Procedures.

With some tools you can even build simple forms and workflows, although the emphasis is really on uisng a wiki as a lean management tool.

The internal network is a better idea, but in a small business they don't necessarily need to know who each other is but rather what each person is doing and using streamlined methods for sharing information. Microblogging tools - like Yammer - or even instant messaging - using tools like Skype chat - can fill that need. Better yet, these tools are often optimised for smartphones too and younger staff will love using them.

With the right tool, some or all of these ideas above can be combined. For example, Google Apps.

The key themes that small business should be thinking about using social media internally for are:

1. Communication. 
2. Team work. 
3. Productivity. 
4. Information management.

We typically view microblogging as the posting of short status updates. And indeed that is what happens most on Twitter, as well as in many cases of Enterprise Microblogging. On Twitter, people mostly post about themselves, or they post links to interesting stuff on the web. In a corporate context, some of our early research has shown that microblogging is useful for people to signal task progress or share resources (Riemer/Richter 2010).

But recently we have started investigated how Yammer is used in large enterprises. The first case we analysed is Capgemini and their use of Yammer internally. Capgemini has adopted Yammer quite early in 2008 and the user community has been growing strongly ever since. Now, what is so special about this case?

Well, what we found in our analysis of a sample of about 1000 posts from July 2010 is that microblogging turns out to be very interactive. Of course people share links and resources or post their status. But the vast majority of posts is part of a conversation, e.g. a communication thread (around 75%).

We have further analysed the various types of postings and the contents of conversations. It turns out that microblogging as a communication channel is a useful medium to facilitate brainstorming, context building and actual knowledge work, not just information sharing.

Read more and see figures regarding distribution of communication categories in our full report, which is available online (Riemer et al 2011).

References

Riemer K and Richter A 2010 ‘Tweet Inside: Microblogging in a Corporate Context (Winner of The Bled Outstanding Paper Award)’, Proceedings of the 23rd Bled eConference 2010 – “eTrust: Implications for the Individual, Enterprises and Society”, Bled, Slovenia, 23rd June 2010, get pdf online.

Riemer K, Richter A, Diederich S and Scifleet S ‘Tweet Talking – Exploring The Nature Of Microblogging At Capgemini Yammer’, BIS Working Paper, ISSN: 1837-1744, http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/7226

I'm at the 2011Enterprise 2.0 Exchange Symposium today, part of ACIS 2011 at Sydney University. Just listened to Kai Riemer's overview of his research into how an enterprise microblogging tool (Yammer) is being used in a variety of organisations.

Above is a report that looked specifically at its use in one organisation. In his presentation he highlighted the different patterns of use across these different organisations.