LinkedIn as your intranet?

“Why can't we use LinkedIn for our intranet? At least it works, our intranet doesn't.” Maybe you considered this or heard it in your organization. The question intrigues me and I think we will hear it more and more in the coming years. What do you say in response to this question as internal or external consultant, Communications or IT manager? I'd like to share my thoughts in this post.

Dissatisfied about IT
The intranet is changing rapidly. The internet provides all kinds of free tools, like Dropbox, Yammer and Google Drive. More and more people are getting used to sharing (versions of) documents, online collaboration, sharing short messages, setting up and maintaining a personal profile, etc. Employees are often dissatisfied about the internal IT-tools and content-focused intranets. These tools cannot compete with the functionality we have on the internet.

Free tools as intranet
More and more employees are openly, and sometimes secretly, using free internet tools to get things done ('stealth IT'). Organizations, especially IT departments are struggling with this trend. Making things worse, the developpers of the free tools aren't laying back. They market their tools, implicitly or explicity, as intranet solutions. Recently LinkedIn shared they possibly also want to position their platform as an intranet. Some are even using Facebook as their intranet.

LinkedIn as intranet?
Could LinkedIn fit as an intranet platform? LinkedIn has functionality many intranets have or should have, such as:

• Detailled profiles and connections between profiles (social network)
• Groups and subgroups to ask questions, share knowledge and publish news
• Share documents with 3rd party apps
• Available everywhere
• Mobile access

Advantages LinkedIn intranet
The advantages of a LinkedIn intranet aren't hard to imagine:

• (Most) employees are already there; they have a profile
• They know how the tool works (intuitive UI)
• Fast development of new functionality
• The platform is free
• Customers are there as well (so collaboration and co-creation via the intranet is easy to set up)
• The LinkedIn intranet can be set up and configured quickly

Disadvantages LinkedIn intranet
But there are also disadvantages of LinkedIn as an intranet platform. I'll list a few:

• Security of company informatie is fragile
• Ownership of content is not clear: is it owned by the company or LinkedIn?
• Navigation of information is defined by LinkedIn
• No functionality for content management 
• Integration with organizaitonal processes and tools is impossible or complex
• Integration with user management tools (ADS) is impossible
• Search is limited: it works in LinkedIn, but you can't seach  from one searchbox over all your free tools and in your business tools, like ERPS

Balancing and directions
When chosing a platform it's always important to weigh the pro's and con's. If costs and collaboration with customers are important, then a LinkedIn intranet could be a good direction. However, if information security and integration with business tools is a priority, this direction is probably not right.
A mix of different directions is also possible. E.g. a LinkedIn intranet for specific goals like knowledge sharing and facilitating internal networks, and an internal platform to open up business tools and share internal work methods.

What are your ideas about a LinkedIn intranet? Is it a viable direction? Do you know organizations that successfully use such an intranet?

(This post was also published in Dutch on Frankwatchting.)

Transparency - A double-edge sword #e20s

Oscar Berg on the stage! He'll talk about Transparency as the double-edged sword. Or: Governing Enterprise 2.0 Risk.

Knowledge work, ideas and the like are like black boxes. We can't look into them. We are finding ways to open up these black boxes.

Increasing transparency in organizations and between organizations decreases risks and enables value-creation.

Oscar points to two cases in which they tried to increase workplace awareness using blogs and microblogs.

Oscar remarks that many of the legal issues we are now concerned with are the same as when email was introduced.

Usability issues leads to workarounds. Employees start to email everything, label everything as Confidential, copy (locally) to ensure access, share with USB sticks.

Lesson 1: There's a real challenge in finding the right balance between security and privacy.

Lesson 2: We need a balance between control and empowerment. Governance is good, but it should not tip over in such a way that employees don't feel empowered. Control and empowerment should walk hand in hand: policies vs. training, restrictions vs. tools, control vs. trust. If there are too many restrictions people will refrain from sharing.

Lesson 3: Transparency must go both ways. Transparency is good, but users should be explained clearly what happens to their information. Facebook e.g. is not transparent both ways.

A culture of trust is more secure than a culture of control.

Rupture - Are You Ready for the 21st century?

Nice video by Michel Cartier titled "Are you ready for the 21st century?" (Found via Luis Suarez on his blog - thx!)

Are You Ready for the 21st Century ? from Michel Cartier on Vimeo.

External and Internal Activity Streams

Every now and then I run into something that really gets me thinking. Recently I ran into this presentation.

ActivityStrea.ms: Is It Getting Streamy In Here?

View more presentations from Chris Messina.

I went through it several times. And I think I'll do so in the coming days. Really great stuff!!

Activity Streams: what are they, how can we collect and understand them? This presentation focuses on public streams, mostly on the internet. But does this story also extend to the streams behind the firewall, inside organization? I think it should, but I'm thinking about how this should work. Of course the firewalls are coming down. But companies will still be protecting their information to a certain extent. My thesis is: These streams will be most useful if the distinction between protected and public information is mixed.

What do you think? And how do you think one stream of internal and external information can be devised? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

(Note: Thx Tom (@tvgtvg) for the discussion that led to this post!)

Implementing Enterprise Microblogging with Yammer

If you follow my tweets you know I started 'Yammer'-ing in the company I work for. I thought: Let's try this and see where it goes! So, we're just experimenting and I don't know if this will hold.
Well, I started Yammer-ing on Sept. 22. I was just curious if someone else from the company I work for was already there. And I wondered how Yammer compared to Twitter. Well, I was the first one in Yammer and very alone. ;-) Of course I asked some colleagues that Twitter to join, but their first response was: one microblog app is enough. Understandable...
For about a month I was completely alone, talking to myself regularly. But, then something strange happened. Colleagues started joining Yammer. I'm not sure how it happened (- because I was pushing them, telling them about enterprise microblogging?! -), but it happened. And now it's taking off. The swift growth has to do with the fact the colleagues fill in the 'Org Chart', which (most people don't realize this) an invite to the colleagues they fill in in the chart. Great viral touch to Yammer!
Most of the people that joined are from the Communications department, but Yammer-use has spread out to HR, IT, management, etc. A large part of the people join, but don't get right into Yammer-ing. They remain silent. (Because I started Yammer-ing, I follow all 'joiners', and if I don't know them I check our "Whoiswho" to see if they really work for Océ.)
Now, a group of about 15 colleagues is really into it. And the number is growing! Yammer has had it use already. Just by telling each other what we do and asking each other questions, we made several steps in productivity. E.g. someone Yammer-ed she was setting up a wiki somewhere. I asked her if she was using the corporate platform. She didn't know it existed and went on to use that platform. It saved her lots of valuable time! Furthermore, I've received regular calls on things I Yammer about and I call others too based on their Yammers.
For those that are reluctant to start Yammer-ing, I set up a short presentation/manual telling them why were using this tool and how to use it. I didn't want to do this up front, just to see where this would go without guidelines.
In the presentation/manual I also addressed the issue of security. Security is an issue with Yammer and all hosted applications. For good reasons we all(?) get nervous when we use them. This is strange, though. We use web-email (Gmail, Hotmail, etc) to write very private messages to friends and family and we don't worry (too much) about that. At least, I don't. My approach is: if Google would spill my mail to the web, it's over for them. The same goes for Yammer too. If they show they can't make a secure application enterprises can rely on, then it's over for them. Companies that offer hosted applications know this and work hard to live up to their customers expectations. Up until now I haven't been disappointed in the hosted apps I use.
On the other hand, I don't want to be naive either. So, I went out to do some research on this topic. For one, you can buy more security from Yammer, which is nice. (Haven't tried it yet, we're still in experiment-mode.) I went on to advise our users not to write secret stuff on Yammer. Give updates on what your working on and/or the questions you have. Be as specific as possible. When you want to tell the details of your idea, point to a blog or wiki, which is behind the firewall. So we'll see if this works and is good enough. Analyzing the Yammers I don't get the impression anyone is telling secrets and I don't think anyone from another company would understand what we're Yammer-ing about anyway... (By the way, I collected some views on Yammer and security here.)
An issue that I do have on hosted apps is: who owns the data/information? And, can I export the content to manage it internally for organizational reason (history, etc). I haven't seen the Yammer team write anything on this topic. According to my research this isn't possible yet either. I do find this should be possible.
Hope this is helpful for you all! And I'm curious how your are rolling out microblogging in your company. What I find really interesting is the fact that I'm moving communication from email to Yammer, following Luis Suarez's example. Less email, more open, social and transparent communication!
I'll write more about why I think microblogging is good for internal, company-use soon (-- although lots has been written on this topic already!).

Tags van Technorati: microblogging,security,enterprise2.0