IBM And Social Networking

IBM announced the IBM Centre for Social Software ... i am sure all of you must have already read about it. I am usually quite slow at tracking news. But then, i eventually do get round to it. So, thats that ...

But, what am i writing about? A simple statement which Erica Topolski, a spokesperson for IBM Media Relations made ...

Do a few conversations about nonwork topics take place? Of course, just like they do in the hallway at work. What we hear from customers and have experienced internally, however, is that these do not interfere with an employee's ability to get their work done.

This is quite what i keep on saying wherever i am talking about social software. This is one of the major refrains that i have heard ... the link to loss of productivity. The question i usually ask to this is ... How many times have you been to a business meeting where the talk was only about business? Never, i would think. Why would it be any different here? Probably no reason. To begin with, when we are talking about social computing within the organization, we need to take into consideration the fact that people have objectives and targets to meet ... everyone is conscious of that. Add to this the fact that even without social software, there is part of the conversation which happens everyday, which is not work-related.

What is even more interesting is what they are hearing from their customers ... that these dont interfere with people's ability to get work done ... which is related to the first point i just made ... people know that they are going to have appraisals, that they have to meet their objectives.

Another question which comes up is that of the impact on confidentiality. What i say here is that since most of the organizations are talking about internal implementations of social computing tools, this issue may not actually be an issue.