corporate social networks

"The Intranet tends to follow trends from the web, and social networking is no exception" [Nielsen Normal Group 2009]

"It's better to structure information according to how people use it, rather than what department owns it" [Jakob Nielsen 2009]

enterprise 2.0 "the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers" [Mc Afee 2006]

"emergent social software platforms" "digital environments in which contributions and interactions" are: "globally visible and persistent over time" performed with social softwares that "enable people to rendezvous, connect or collaborate through computer-mediated communication and to form online communities" emergent, freeform, with "patterns and structure inherent in people’s interactions". [Mc Afee 2009]

intranet of people via S earch L inks follow me A uthoring "read write web" T ags E xtension see alsosee also S ignals

Social Networks A social network is made of actors (people, organizations, group) that are tied by social links.

explicit and declared relations interactions between actors affiliation between actors Social links colleague communicate skill web

the bull's Strong links: close collaborators Weak links professional acquaintances Potential links: professional proximity Absent relationships: remainder of the network

Social capital "resources embedded in one's social networks, resources that can be accessed or mobilized through ties in the networks" [Lin 2008]

Enterprise 2.0 and corporate social capital Wiki, online office suites: collaboration productivity agility social networking service: link maintenance non-redundant information network bridging blog, social tagging: efficient search link formation collective intelligence

overwhelming flow of social data

the user need help for efficiently handling its social capital and preserve the benefits of enterprise 2.0

Social network analysis helps understanding and exploiting the key features of social networks in order to manage their assets, their life cycle and predict their evolution.

Critical mass

community detection Influences the way information is shared [Coleman 1988] influences the way actors behave [Burt 2000] distribution of actors and activities

Centrality: strategic positions Degree centrality: Local attention beetweenness centrality: reveal broker "A place for good ideas" [Burt 1992] [Burt 2004] Closeness centrality: Capacity to communicate [Freeman 1979]

transitivity of relationships evaluating social opportunities PeterJack Paul

Analyzing intranet of people sound great! but… what for?

maintain strong links exploit the semantic of links to filter notifications highlight influent actors and popular resources not yet mobilized

strengthen weak links highlight valuable weak links that provide access to relevant assets and opportunities

filter potential social capital and connect communities and people that should collaborate bridge social gaps

Open problem: using analysis metrics to leverage social intranet usability