Social Media and Virtual Communities

This is a course for the students with a strong interest in new technologies and how they may be used to create new business opportunities, particularly new social networking media. Topics covered will include social networking and how the business world leverages them, virtual worlds and technologies, skills in designing and implementing social media for business value using sharepoint and iTunes U (hands on projects).

Course Web Site (Sharepoint Server: requires login. Email me to request access.

As Disney describes it, to some degree we will "imagineer" the future of business in this course... what would you do in business if anything were possible? Look at how highly Microsoft values the social networking and virtual community components of Yahoo! as a competitive factor against Google. Why? See comments from Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect at Microsoft. The future is integrated and collaborative. Look at how firms are now using Facebook, My Space, Linkedin, and other networking tools to improve knowledge flow and enable marketing and hiring processes. Where will these tools go next? There are already tools for specific communities, such as doctors, to share cases and best practices. They may even get paid for their contributions (see the medical portal Sermo as an example).

Course Web Site (Sharepoint Server)

In case you have not noticed, we now have a fully-functional Internet collaboration tool here at Goizueta, the community portal server. We will be examining how this tool may be used to innovate GBS' products and processes as part of our hands on work. We will also look at the usage of iTunes U here at Emory and how it can possibly be of value to Apple if it is indeed "free." Is it also easy to use? See this commentary.

Many possibilities exist for leveraging online networks and media. Some are already building businesses through 3D virtual spaces. Students who take this course will be prepared to enter the emerging world of social media and virtual communities. Specifically, they will:
• be able to evaluate key success factors for effective design of social media
• be able to design and implement a variety of social media
• be able to present pros and cons of different examples of virtual community implementations for business value creation.

Though this wave of innovation on the Internet is new. I am not the first to notice the importance and potential of new forms of collaboration. Have you read The World is Flat? Davenport does a nice job of explaining how we got to this point of enabled massive, global collaboration. Why would we choose a path of innovating collaboration as our means to achieving our stretch goals? Have a look at this video from noted thinker Howard Reingold concerning humans and our propensity for collective action and collaboration.