Page 193 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind

Y O UR CL OUD STRATEG Y: WHAT KIND O F COMPANY DO Y O U W ANT?

departmental, geographical, and role-assigned boundaries
tend to inhibit it from happening in many business settings.
“Social networking cuts across these artificial boundaries to
‘flatten’ communications,” concluded Arthur Jue, Jackie
Marr, and Mary Ellen Kassotakis in Social Media at Work.
In addition to people finding out what others know, an

aggregation system could combine e-mail threads and tie
together individual conversations to be sent to a group list.
The wiki site could regularly conduct searches for any rel-
evant documents, sales materials, Web site references, confer-
ence presentations, and other such material that may spring
up inside the company. In short, the wiki becomes an aggre-
gator of what the company knows on the topic, with a few ac-

tive voices taking the lead on what to do with the information.
Some outspoken members of the group might start blogs and
publish what they know on a daily basis. In this manner, a col-
laborative knowledge comes into being that no one in the
company realized was already there. Gaps are identified. Lead-
ing voices are identified. A network forms and creates an ad
hoc team to cope with an important change.
An adjoining function for a social networking server
would be recruitment. A Web page dedicated to “the team”

could post the background and previous projects of those par-
ticipating, including projects at other companies that fellow
workers previously knew nothing about. References to people
both inside and outside the company become part of the dis-
cussion. The site becomes a recruitment station, where those
who are interested start contributing their experience and
what they think needs to happen next.

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