SOCIAL NETWORKING

Social Networking is being used to retain employees and show off new products. Nissan created a social networking site, called N-Square, to bypass bureaucracy by boosting informal contacts. In one successful case the social networking site helped the team to decided on a new car stereo design within three days. It would have normally taken a month to reach a decision using traditional methods. IBM is helping customers to create virtual worlds to test new products and get feedback from customers. It’s clear that corporations are looking at social networking to build better teams and to improve communications between its employees and managers.

There are downsides to social networking in a corporate environment. Employees might spend more time goofing off on the social networking sites than actually working or posting inappropriate content. These are concerns that management face and that’s why at Nissan they don’t allow anonymous posting of content.

Social networking sites are going to continue to evolve to make it even easier for people to communicate and work together. To solve tomorrow’s problems a team will consist of members from around the world. Even though they may speak different languages the social networking sites will allow the team to communicate easily with one another in their own native language. We are beginning to see this now where web sites are automatically translated from one language to another language.