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240 8 Social Enterprise and Other Social Commerce Topics

the firewall”), and are often referred to as corporate social An Example of a Private Enterprise Network
networks. Such networks come in several formats, depend-
ing on their purpose, the industry, the country, and so forth. In the opening case of Chapter 1, we introduced Starbucks’
For the evolution of the networked enterprise, see Bughin hosted enterprise network. We also described Sony’s and
and Chui (2013). iRobot’s hosted enterprise social network in Chapter 7. Many
other companies also have enterprise networks of all kinds.
Here is an example of another private network:

Taxonomy of Social Enterprise Applications
Example: IBM’S Business and Professional Community
The Greater IBM Connection (ibm.com/ibm/greateribm) is
The following terms are frequently used in enterprise net-
an internal social networking site that gives IBM employees
working. Most will be discussed in this chapter.
and former IBMers a rich connection to the people with whom
they work, on both a personal and a professional level. The
network helps employees make new connections, track cur-
rent friends and coworkers, and renew contacts with people
1. Networking and community building. Conducting they have worked with in the past, including retirees. When
networking and community building involving employees join the network, they get a profile page. They can
employees, executives, business partners, and cus- use the status message field and the free-form “MyIBM” sec-
tomers. tion on their profile page to let other people at IBM know
2. Crowdsourcing. Gathering ideas, insights, and where they are, what they are doing, and even what they are
feedback from crowds (e.g., employees, customers, thinking. By 2016, about 460,000 IBMers were connected to
and business partners; see Section 8.7). Salesforce one another using IBM Connections platform.
Success Community (success.salesforce.com) and Employees can also use the network to post photos, create
My Starbucks Idea (mystarbucksidea.force.com) lists, and organize events. If users are hosting an event, they can
are examples. create an event page on the network and invite people to attend.
3. Social collaboration. Collaborative work and prob- The page can also be a place to spread the buzz about the event
lem-solving using wikis, blogs, instant messaging, and get people talking about it through the comments feature.
collaborative office documents, and other special In addition to the social goal, the network team created the
purpose Web-based collaboration platforms such as site to help IBM employees meet the challenge of building
Laboranova (laboranova.com). professional relationships that are vital to working in large,
4. Social publishing. This is the creation of user- distributed enterprises. The network can help IBM employees
generated content in the enterprise, which is accessible discover people with common interests or the right skills for
to all (e.g., slideshare.net, youtube.com). a project. Learning more about someone—personally and
5. Social views and feedback. Getting feedback and professionally—facilitates making contacts and might entice
opinions from the enterprise’s internal and external people to learn about the ongoing projects and activities of
communities on specific issues. other people. This network can also provide valuable insights
for managers evaluating employees for promotion.
The IBM network is related to IBM’s social business
Innovation Projects, cited later in this chapter. It is also related to
Characteristics of Enterprise Social Networks IBM’s Connections, the company’s social software platform.
Note: Gartner Inc. named IBM a leader for social soft-
Enterprise social networks, like any social network, enable ware in 2015.
employees to create profiles and interact with one another. By
encouraging interactions among members, a company can fos-
ter collaboration and teamwork, and increase employee satis- How Enterprise Social Networking Helps
faction. For more benefits, see zdnet.com/blog/hinchcliffe. Employees and Organizations
For additional information, see the International Journal
of Social and Humanistic Computing. For additional tips and Enterprise social networking can help employees in one or
sources, see socialcast.com. more of the following ways: