Social Computing: Building Contexts for Interaction (Part 1)

By: Adnan (AD) Al-Ghourabi
Enterprise Architecture, IHS

1. Executive Summary

From the research the author has done in this discipline, few companies have fully embraced social networking. Companies, however, have a vested interest in becoming a leader in providing other venues for collaboration and interaction with colleagues and customers.

Social computing allows organizations to capture the collective intelligence of internal and external customers and augment the value of their offerings in a way that will lead to innovative solutions, increased productivity, and will enhance their ability to empower customers and provide them with insight that impacts world markets and shapes companies’ future.

The challenges that lay ahead of such initiatives would likely not be IT-related, but rather ensuring that the right processes are put in place, the right teams are engaged, and that constituents have a common understanding of objectives and expectations, with articulate scope and achievable goals. It’s likely that the strategy for internal versus external communities will be different, although the underpinning principles are the same.

The concept of social networks is straight-forward and the potentials are, indeed, endless. And so, as we move from Web 2.0 to the Web 3.0 technologies in the next 5-10 years, it will be imperative that organizations put forth a vision and a strategy that will realize their potential. Social networks are indeed a “growing necessity”, said John Oechsle, CIO at IHS.

2. Introduction


With the advent of the Web 1.0, if such versioning is appropriate, where establishing internet presence (profitable and non-profitable) and making information discoverable, be it by SEO, marketing, or other means, research has continued to explore new ventures and create exciting opportunities that change the way we live, work, and interact.

The new Web, Web 2.0, is about users and what they have to offer. It’s their collective input and the spirit of sharing that’s the trademark of the new Web. It has opened the doors wide-open for businesses to adapt to and adopt these technological and social changes.

While collaboration tools were an evolution to e-mails and hallway conversations, they often suffered from a short-life span where collaboration sites become stale content repositories and fade away as soon as projects conclude.

Some of the popular Web 2.0 tools are blogs and wikis. Blogs have transformed to become a source of documentation, support, or a means to establish authority and credibility. They have remained more of a one-way information-delivery vehicle with minimal interactions. Blogs are here to stay and can certainly continue to serve as a means of communication and information dissemination.

Wikis are an informal community-owned documentation where a number of users can co-author or co-review text. Wikis have served as knowledgebases with collective ownership.

Despite the great advantages these tools offer, they are lacking the networking element. Social networks transcend geographical and organizational limitations and connect individuals, groups, and content in communities where knowledge is reserved and new ideas are born and shared.

3. Web 2.0 and Social Computing


3.1 What is Web 2.0?


According to Tim O’Reilly (who is credited with coining the term), Web 2.0 is “the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them.”

Web 2.0, as was pointed out in the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in 2004, is about building contexts for interactions rather than applications. [1]

3.2 Social Computing

Social computing and social networks are one of the manifestations of Web 2.0. These concepts are seen as an evolution to collaboration tools. According to Wikipedia, it’s defined as “an area of computer science that is concerned with the intersection of social behavior and computational systems.”

Networking sites, content tagging and filtering, picture-sharing, online auctions, and prediction markets are all examples of social computing. [18

Given the plethora of solutions available, management teams have realized the benefit of such tools within the confines of the enterprise, or as an offering to customers. “I want Facebook for the Enterprise” or “Can we use Facebook?” is a common starting point and it signifies the awareness and the need for a context for interaction for colleagues and customers alike.

All enterprise social network solutions comprise individuals, groups, content, and the relationships among those three. Individuals, the adopters, are central to social computing. Their active participation is a cornerstone for the success of any social-based implementation. [3]

Individuals organize in groups with common interests, goals, or expertise. Existing groups invite individuals to partake in the conversation and the level of activity expands virally.

Content is represented by the contribution of individuals and groups, such as documents, shared bookmarks, or discussions. This content is where the business value lies.

3.3 Tagging as an Example of Social Computing


Tags are, in a way, a form of metadata; descriptors and pointers by which people can find content easier. In some cases, tags are as important as the content itself and tend to augment the quality as it helps to drive search.

Stewart Butterfield, the co-founder of Flickr, emphasized the importance of tags as: “The job of tags isn’t to organize information into tidy categories. It’s to add value.” [1]

Tags, whether done visually through a set of existing tags (aka guided tagging), or by allowing users to add their own, significantly improve the quality of service provided to end users. It improves the quality of search and allows for better categorization of data, a process that continues to improve as the acceptance and participation levels increase. As an example, 85% of the photos on Flickr have user-added metadata. [1]

References

1. Shuen, Amy (2008). A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and Strategies Behind Successful Web 2.0 Implementations. O’Reilly Media, Inc.

2. Gotta, Mike (2009). The Burton Group. Field Research Study: Social Networking Within the Enterprise.

3. NewsGator (2008). Social Computing in the Enterprise.

4. Vestal, Wesley (2006). Sustaining Communities of Practice.

5. Engmann , Brad (2008). Blogtronix. Communities & Education: Connecting People, Sharing Knowledge & Driving Interest.

6. SharePoint Magazine. NewsGator Social Sites. Retrieved 12/21/2008:
   
   http://sharepointmagazine.net/products/newsgator-social-sites

7. NewsGator. Webminar. Delivering ‘Facebook for the Enterprise’ with SharePoint. Webminar. Viewed 12/21/2008:
   
   https://cc.readytalk.com/cc/playback/Playback.do;jsessionid=5ED52AD41DCF13B50D485F6EF4F7B57E.lax11
   

8. Network World. Firm builds a social network woth SharePoint, NewsGator RSS. Retrieved 12/21/2008:
   
   http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/080108-firm-builds-a-social-network.html
   

9. Conversation with Christy Schoon, NewsGator Marketing, on 12/22/2008.

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13. Gavin , Scott: Meet Charlie: What’s Enterprise 2.0. Retrieved 02/28/2009:
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14. Social Semantic Web: Where Web 2.0 Meets Web 3.0. Retrieved 03/27/2009:
    
    http://tw.rpi.edu/portal/AAAI-SSS-09:_Social_Semantic_Web:_Where_Web_2.0_Meets_Web_3.0
    

15. Wikipedia 3.0, the end of Google. Retrieved 03/27/2009:
    
    http://evolvingtrends.wordpress.com/2006/06/26/wikipedia-30-the-end-of-google/
    

16. Facebook Announces Facebook Connect for iPhone. Retrieved 03/26/2009:
    
    http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Facebook-Announces-Facebook-Connect-for-iPhone-215329/
    

17. Conry-Murray, Andrew (2009). Can Enterprise Social Networking Pay Off?

18. Social Computing. Wikipedia. Retrieved 03/28/3009:
    
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_computing

19. Stumpmedia. Retrieved 03/13/2009: http://www. Stumpmedia.com

20. Twine. Retrieved 03/13/2009: http://www.twine.com/