Enterprise social software (also known as or regarded as a major component of Enterprise 2.0), comprises social software as used in "

enterprise Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to: Business and economics Brands and enterprises * Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company * Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company * Enterprise ...

" (business/

commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

) contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to corporate intranets and other classic

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

platforms used by large companies to organize their

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqu ...

. In contrast to traditional

enterprise software Enterprise software, also known as enterprise application software (EAS), is computer software used to satisfy the needs of an organization rather than individual users. Such organizations include businesses, schools, interest-based user group ...

, which imposes structure prior to use, enterprise social software tends to encourage use prior to providing structure. Carl Frappaolo and Dan Keldsen defined Enterprise 2.0 in a report written for Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) as "a system of web-based

technologies Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

that provide rapid and agile collaboration, information sharing, emergence and integration capabilities in the extended enterprise".

Applications

Functionality

Social software for an enterprise must (according to Andrew McAfee, Associate Professor,

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA ...

) have the following functionality to work well :McAfee, Andrew, P. "Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration" (MIT Sloan Management Review), Spring 2006, Vol.47, No.3 * Search: allowing users to search for other users or content * Links: grouping similar users or content together * Authoring: including blogs and wikis * Tags: allowing users to tag content * Extensions: recommendations of users; or content based on profile * Signals: allowing people to subscribe to users or content with RSS feeds McAfee recommends installing easy-to-use software which does not impose any rigid structure on users. He envisages an informal roll-out, but on a common platform to enable future collaboration between areas. He also recommends strong and visible

managerial Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

support to achieve this. In 2007 Dion Hinchcliffe expanded the list above by adding the following four functions: # Freeform function: no barriers to authorship (meaning free from a learning curve or from restrictions) # Network-oriented function, requiring web-addressable content in all cases # Social function: stressing transparency (to access), diversity (in content and community members) and openness (to structure) # Emergence function: requiring the provision of approaches that detect and leverage the collective wisdom of the community

Enterprise search Enterprise search is the practice of making content from multiple enterprise-type sources, such as databases and intranets, searchable to a defined audience. "Enterprise search" is used to describe the software of search information within an ente ...

differs from a typical web search in its focus on "use within an organization by employees seeking information held internally, in a variety of formats and locations, including databases,

document management system A document management system (DMS) is usually a computerized system used to store, share, track and manage files or documents. Some systems include history tracking where a log of the various versions created and modified by different users is r ...

s, and other repositories".

Criticism

There has been recent criticism that the adaptation of the social paradigm (e.g. openness and altruistic behavior) does not always work well for the enterprise setting, which led some authors to question the proper functioning of enterprise social software. The findings from a novel study suggests that free and non-anonymous sharing of trusted information (beyond marketing or product information) is significantly influenced by concerns from business users.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Enterprise Social Software Business terms Web 2.0 Social media Social software Social information processing

Applications

Functionality

Criticism

See also

References