Social Networking in the Workplace

Social networking is a critical necessity in jobs. Of the variety of benefits from social networking, research places retention, satisfaction, productivity, and learning at the core. As workplaces become increasingly digitized workers interact through computer media. In my own work with large systems development projects (teams of 10+, $600,000+/month budget) I have isolated tools and techniques being applied to create "digital water coolers" or spaces for social networking. This is a hot area. Some of it is just emerging, such as rich social spaces including 3D representations, such as Second Life.


We can see this trend showing up in the Mac OS and Windows OS as communication and collaboration continue to be hyped as critical features (video conferencing iChat, Project Spaces, Outlook/Exchange/Mobile integration, MS acquisition of Ray Ozzie and Groove, etc.) The upcoming release of MS Communications Suite will be another piece in this pursuit of better social newtorking.


Here is a nice interview with the CIO of McKesson supporting the idea. He also talks about the increasing importance of Web 2.0 technologies in healthcare.
McKesson CIO Randall Spratt Interviewed Nov. 15, 2006