Office SharePoint 2007 Document: How to Get the Most Value from Social Computing for Business with Microsoft
Brief Description
The whitepaper discusses the value of social computing for business, citing 2 customer references of large scale enterprise deployments, and the technologies that enable successful results from social computing.
Overview
The whitepaper discusses the value of social computing for business, citing 2 customer references of large scale enterprise deployments, and the technologies that enable successful results from social computing. The whitepaper also addresses the business and technical benefits from using SharePoint Products and Technologies and how the platform differentiates compared to other social computing vendors. Social computing is not a passing trend, so organizations should think of this “new way of work” in context of a broader enterprise collaboration strategy.
Executive Summary
Social computing is a term with many meanings. We refer to social computing as the natural evolution of collaboration, a shift of focus from content to a focus on people. The power of social computing lies with the users and the communities. Organizations obtain business value from the experiences and ideas produced through the use of these collaboration technologies that are modeled after natural social behavior. The common term for such technologies is Web 2.0. For Web 2.0 technologies that apply to the enterprise setting, the derived connotation is Enterprise Web 2.0, or, for short, Enterprise 2.0. These technologies help facilitate social interaction and enable valuable information to be gathered, analyzed, and shared broadly. More specifically, these technologies provide users with the ability to:
· Establish a richer identity that extends beyond their HR information.
· Create content and collaborate seamlessly with colleagues both inside and outside the immediate organization.
· Find subject matter experts and form social networks with colleagues.
· Develop, amend, and publish static and dynamic content easily.
· Search for resources based on social distance or relevance.
Social computing has proved immensely successful over the last few years for consumers on the Internet. Sites such as Facebook have taken the development of peer groups beyond demographic and geographical boundaries, and community solutions such as Wikipedia have created a collaborative encyclopedia which is often referenced as a major resource for information.
The adoption of social computing by the business world has been slower, often because of concerns over security and privacy. However, social computing has certainly gained traction and adoption among enterprises over the last year.
In order for social computing to be successful in the business context, the technologies must align well to a user's normal working patterns. For instance, similar to the way people network at a social event, where we move from one conversation to another or introduce new friends into a social group, these technologies help us keep abreast of what our colleagues are doing and facilitate introductions, but on the Web.
For a number of organizations, Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, the collective name for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, address their security and management concerns. With these applications, Microsoft has integrated social computing technologies within an enterprise ready platform. SharePoint Products and Technologies are built on well established server technologies, including Windows Server and Microsoft SQL Server. In addition to this, SharePoint Products and Technologies leverage the capabilities of the world's most popular productivity suite, Microsoft Office.
This paper provides examples of the how enterprises are using social computing to address business problems. Customers referenced include Accenture and Miami-Dade County Public Schools. While very different in organizational structure and goals, both of these customers implemented Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to harness the community development and information sharing possibilities of social computing.
Download the whitepaper here.
Bart