Chapter © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

14-2 Social computing denotes the hardware, software, and applications that support any sort of social behavior. Social computing is designed to create or re-create “social conventions and social contexts”.

© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall 14-3 Platforms that stress interaction and mass participation (e.g., wikis, Facebook, MySpace) It’s creating new relationships and power structures Direct connectivity between two or more users, without mediation Cellphones, Blackberries, iPods, laptops Cheap connectivity devices P2P communication Web 2.0 applications Computing behavior

© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall 14-4 Globalization and outsourcing are driving new demands of collaboration. A mobile, customer-facing and virtual workforce expects appropriated collaborative technology. Wikis and blogs are rewriting the rules of corporate communication (Mayfield 2008).

© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall 14-5 Innovation. Social computing is engaging employees, customers, and suppliers, which may lead to new ways of innovating. Training. Virtual worlds (e.g., Second Life) are create effective distance learning environments and make work more fun.

© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall 14-6 More flexible organizational behavior Dynamic participation Openness (e.g., voting, feedback) Conversation Community building

© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall 14-7 New ways to manage digital content E.g., 3D visual interfaces, RSS feeds, tagging, blogs. New styles of management Focus more on people’s outputs and their accountabilities.

© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall 14-8 Adaptive organizational designs Less structure and greater agility are expected as organizations become more flexible and open. New control, accountability, and decision mechanisms will be needed.

© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall 14-9 The VisionThe IT Manager’s Challenge Blurred boundaries Collaboration and sharing Situational applications Mass participation and accessibility Transient information Supports social behavior Innovation and creativity Viral Dynamic Situational roles Social governance and etiquette Collective intelligence; bottom-up innovation Anywhere/anytime connectivity Firewalls Intellectual property and privacy protection Maintaining transactional applications and operational integrity Authentication and authorization Creating a permanent record Support business behavior Efficient use of resources Secure Backup Regulatory accountabilities Organizational governance and policy Top-down business strategy Controlled communication

© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Short business horizons Business leaders have shorter time horizon in their thinking than IT and are often not prepared to anticipate new technologies. Resources Social computing requires support and facilitation to make it effective.

© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Changing the culture Organizational behavior must change if the value of social computing is to be realized. Initial adoption rates are usually high but continuous participation often drops off.

© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Experimentation Organizations are experimenting with small-scale social computing environments (e.g., wikis, blogs, virtual worlds). Some results show enhanced collaboration and innovative outcomes (e.g., IBM’s innovation Jams).

© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Practice evolution Organizations should develop practices and policies around how and where social computing should be used (e.g., internet usage, good privacy and security practices).

© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Vision A key component of the vision for social computing will be the role IT will play. -- Will it simply provide a secure computing platform, tools, backups, and hardware? Or -- Will the organization expect social computing to be integrated into processes?

© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall What is the value of these tools? How can we pick the right ones? What is the management playbook for using them effectively? There are no final answers yet but: Experimenting, practicing, and visioning.

© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Social computing is a powerful set of technologies, tools, and behaviors, but whether or not that power will be perceived as “valuable” is yet to be seen. The impact of social computing will result from the deep and close connections created by people and technology.

© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall