Well, at least that’s what Harvard Business Publishing is calling them.
I just finished deliverig a workshop at KMWorld09 where near the end I asked the group in attendance … “Do you think a fair number of people just wish all this social-networks-in-the-workplace stuff would go away ? Do you think it will go away ?”
Their answer was “Yes” to the first question, and “No” to the second question.
This extract from a blog post on a Harvard Business Publishing blog would seem to reinforce those answers. Interconnectedness of information flows and interconnected people .. seems as if they are here to stay, and that the presence of social computing installations and the impacts that accompany its use will grow.
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The Über-Connected Organization: A Mandate for 2010
by Jeanne C Meister and Karie Willyerd
Think about your organization and ask yourself these two questions:
- Are external social media sites restricted or blocked while at work?
- Is the use of social media in the workplace inhibited or frowned upon?
If you answered yes, then your organization is one of the majority of firms with over 100 employees that have yet to embrace the use of social media in the workplace for the average worker.
[ Snip … ]
However, there are a growing number of firms such as IBM, Toshiba, and Cerner Corporation that are becoming über-connected workplaces. Using social media tools such as wikis, blogs, microblogs and corporate social networks, they are connecting employees globally and are fostering mass collaboration. As a result, these companies are seeing improvements in communication, cross-functional collaboration and creative approaches to problem solving.
[ Snip … ]
Recent research provides evidence that there are business benefits to becoming an über-connected organization:
Access to social media improves productivity. According to Dr Brent Coker from the Department of Management and Marketing at University of Melbourne in Australia, workers who engage in “Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing” are more productive than those who don’t.
Millennials will seek jobs that encourage the use of social media. Those born between 1977 and 1997 — the ones you need to hire to replace the retiring boomers — are networked 24/7 and expect the company to accommodate pervasive connectivity.
Companies that provide access to social media create a more engaged workforce. In 2009, Cerner implemented uCern, a corporate social network. In 2010, it will extend this social network to its customers and suppliers. Why? Because uCern has demonstrated significant business benefits to Cerner such as allowing employees to have increased access to experts across the globe, reducing the cycle time from discovery of new products to launch of new products, and increasing employee engagement and satisfaction in the workplace.
As we scan the workplace of the future, we see that everything we know about work — where we work, how we work, what skills we need to stay employable, what technologies we use to connect with colleagues — is changing. And these changes will only continue to accelerate as we move toward 2020, as the Millennial Generation will comprise nearly half of the workforce by 2014.
Companies who want to attract and recruit the best talent will realize becoming über-connected will be a business imperative. The journey starts with asking yourself three questions:
- What business benefits are you trying to solve?
- Who needs to be involved in the coalition to become über-connected?
- What type of change management plan needs to be put into place?
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Read the full post here …
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