In a report on the use of social software and media in business,
Gartner research director Anthony Bradley said that users would
turn to social software and techniques, and that businesses must
examine their usefulness or risk being left behind. He said that if
corporations did not adopt them they risked their data flowing out
to consumer-grade, public platforms.
"The demand from workers is escalating and they can and are
turning to the consumer internet if their corporate technology
provider isn’t offering a solution," he said.
“Some enterprises have achieved substantial results with social
software, and many enterprises are now experimenting with the
technology," he said. "Organisations need to exploit this growing
consumer literacy for business purposes and prepare a social
software strategy with a realistic understanding of the associated
challenges, risks and benefits.”
Bradley said that the techniques of social media sites such as
Wikipedia, Facebook and MySpace can be harnessed to increase
corporate productivity and collaborative ability, but that there
were five problems companies would have to address in order to
harness their power.
He said that companies must at least investigate such techniques
and not adopt a 'wait and see' attitude; that companies must find a
way to make people engage with active use of the technology and not
simply be observers; and that they must use their own enterprise
versions of applications to ensure corporate privacy.
Bradley said that some misuse of technologies was inevitable,
but that that must be expected and controlled, and that companies
would need to change the way they control, measure and conceive of
time and productivity management as workforces used the
technologies to become more flexible.
“The severity of these five challenges will vary significantly
from one organization to the next, as does their impact on
decisions concerning whether, when and how to proceed with social
software,” said Bradley. “There are no absolutes, for each
potential social application organization must balance the business
benefits over the risks of overcoming these challenges.”
