The adoption of social technologies in the workplace
In October of 2010, IDC shared their findings from a Social Business Survey regarding the adoption of social technologies and social business within the workplace. Quite positive, their results indicated a “rapidly increasing use of social tools and initiatives across a wide range of businesses small to large and in many different verticals.” The Social Business Survey also uncovered the reasons for the increase in adoption of social tool and initiatives. The following chart created by IDC provides fourteen reasons for this increase in popularity:
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At the top of this list, 60% of the organizations surveyed say that the main reason for using social tools and technology is to “acquire knowledge/ask questions”. The second and third reasons were to “share knowledge/contribute ideas” and “communicate with customers”.
These findings are relevant to all types of organizations, across different verticals and of different sizes. Organizations are increasingly placing high importance on collaboration between business partners, employees. They are also actively involving their customers as decision makers throughout the development process. Collaboration and high customer involvement are effective ways to increase idea generation and promote the sharing of knowledge within the workplace. As a result, organizations are turning to social software to facilitate these processes.
Emerging use of social technologies in business today
What about one year later? In 2011, are organizations still placing emphasis on implementing social technologies within the workplace? All signs point to yes. A recent study by Chess Media Group entitled here. Integrating these types of tools into the product development process helps to increase communication between customers and other stakeholders like employees and suppliers.
How it is being used: Customer engagement, idea capturing, customer service, lead generation and brand reputation management.
Internal social collaboration tools: These include internal employee blogs, wikis, chat application integration and discussion forums. As organizations promote a culture of collaboration between stakeholders, they seek the right social technologies to help facilitate this process.
How they are collectively being used: Share work-related insights, speed up communication between stakeholders, break down internal silos, encourage employee participation, facilitate discussion and the sharing of knowledge and ideas across the organization.
We want to know: Is your organization promoting the use of social technologies in the workplace?