Social Computing is the New 'Business Operating System'

NewsGator today introduced capabilities that affirm social computing as the new operating system for business – one that eclipses the bloated email inbox as the most productive home base for knowledge workers. What e-mail and the file folder system have done since the 1980s – serve as the de facto operating system for business – enterprise social computing delivers today, and does better, going forward.

Social Sites 3.0 is a significant upgrade to NewsGator’s enterprise social computing platform, and to Enterprise 2.0 capabilities in general. Companies can sign up for beta access today to see how Social Sites transforms content, activity and social graphs into “Social Knowledge.” NewsGator’s Social Sites 3.0 release includes two breakthrough capabilities to organize valuable content and leverage reputation in large organizations:

•  Socialpedia – This self-assembling Wikipedia-style internal Web site is a one-stop source of knowledge generated in topic-based online communities throughout the global organization. Socialpedia leverages an improved Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 wiki experience within Social Sites communities to create a single knowledge repository with distributed ownership. A new hire can find terminology to get productive fast. A sales representative can brush up on an arcane product feature to help close the deal. HR can explain complicated concepts just once for all to see. 
• Knowledge Explorer – Expertise maps, which take advantage of the rich media features in Microsoft Silverlight, provide an interactive graphical snapshot of the professionals in an organization that are most informed on a selected topic. When users click on a topic in a tag cloud, the map appears with experts arranged according to their automatically calculated expertise ratings. (See image above; and click for larger image.)

These new capabilities will be included as standard features in Social Sites Enterprise which is becoming the default starting point for productivity-minded knowledge workers in large businesses.

In addition, Social Sites 3.0 extends the capabilities of the Office SharePoint Server content management and collaboration platform by providing a Facebook-like social computing experience. It presents users with carefully selected content, connects them to important colleagues and involves them in productive communities.

“Social Sites 3.0 helps customers take their business-class social computing to the next level by presenting users with just the right content and connections at just the right time through Microsoft Office SharePoint Server - the industry’s most powerful enterprise social computing platform,” said Kathleen Winder, Microsoft’s Director of SharePoint and FAST Partners.  “Social Sites is a very compelling complement to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server that promises to change the way business gets done.”

To be considered for the Social Sites 3.0 beta program, please email socialsites@newsgator.com.

Also, don't forget to see NewsGator in Booth #505 at the Enterprise 2.0 2009 Conference!

You can view the entire press release here.

White Paper: A 6 Step Roadmap to Ensure Succesful Enterprise Social Computing Adoption

The seismic success of Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter and other social computing tools often creates soaring expectations for viral adoption of social computing in business settings.  While the "just build it and they will come" strategy works in the consumer world, it's a dangerous approach for businesses: users may never come, or they may come and waste their time.

That's why today NewsGator has released a six-step roadmap for successful enterprise social computing adoption.  It's a systematic analysis to help ensure that Enterprise 2.0 initiatives make sense to users and improve business performance exactly as intended. 

The following six steps are thoroughly explored in the white paper:

1. Identify business problems and goals
2. Define use cases to help solve business problems
3. Select the correct technologies 
4. Publish best practices for use
5. Identify obstacles to participation
6. Identify desired cultural transformations

You can download "A Roadmap for Successful Adoption of Social Computing in the Enterprise" here.

Webinar: How & Why to Apply Strategy & Governance to Social Computing Initiatives

On June 30, 2009, at 2pm ET, NewsGator will host a free, live webinar, "How & Why to Apply Strategy and Governance to Social Computing Initiatives."

It is our belief that using social technologies for the sake of coolness is out, while using them in support of business strategy and to drive culture change is in. Your strategy for social technology must not only be connected to business strategies, but also, focused on the right technologies at the right time. Extending your strategy and governance into proper policy and code of conduct language helps embed adoption and expectations into the culture of the organization.

Please join Stacy Wilson, Accredited Business Communicator (ABC) and president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., and Greg Reinacker, CTO of NewsGator, for this webinar which covers:

• Why a strategic governance model makes good business sense
• How to connect your internal social technology use to business strategy
• How to determine which social technologies to focus on when
• How social technologies affect organizational culture
• What policy and code of conduct elements to consider

We believe that this webinar will be beneficial for the following types of people: Corporate Communication Professionals; Human Resources Professionals; Enterprise/IT Architects; Information & Knowledge; Management Professionals; IT Professionals; CIOs; and anyone tasked with evaluating, recommending or designing Enterprise 2.0 & Social Computing strategies.

We look forward to your participation on June 30, 2009 at 2pm ET.  You can register here.