University of Michigan Collaborates with NewsGator Effort Produces "Making Social Computing Work in Your Enterprise" Course

Today The University of Michigan School of Information Executive Education program announces that they are collaborating with NewsGator to offer a course entitled "Making Social Computing Work in Your Enterprise."  This course, which takes place June 1-3, 2009, will offer a conceptual framework for understanding Enterprise 2.0 in terms of business objectives as opposed to specific technology features.  In addition, the course also will explore economic, social, and psychological principles that are critical to making Enterprise 2.0 rollouts succeed. 

Paul Resnick, coordinator of the university's social computing specialization explains that this course is being offered in response to the fact that "online communities, social networking, and user-contributed content dominate the consumer world" and that, as a result, "businesses yearn to capture the power of these new models to improve performance."   

In specific, the June course will address three central questions:

• Which technology features are most useful for meeting business goals?
• Which organizational and social interventions should accompany a technology rollout to ensure productivity gains?
• Which metrics should be used to predict the value of a proposed Enterprise 2.0 project, and to manage the project on an ongoing basis?

The School of Information decided to collaborate with NewsGator because of our experience helping hundreds of enterprises implement social computing solutions and measure the benefits.  NewsGator will provide case studies, best practices, ROI tools, and other research materials.

As J.B. Holston, NewsGator's CEO, says, this collaborative course "will immerse managers, executives, and sales and service consultants in the University of Michigan's rich pool of social computing knowledge. Professors and graduate students live, think, breathe, and shape the science of social computing, and course attendees will go back to work enlightened and empowered by the university's knowledge."

You can register for the course here.