What is the right relationship model for social apps within the enterprise?

I was linked this morning towards an article of the BusinessWeek that is discussing some statements of Socialtext CEO Eugene Lee about the preferable model of relationship for internal social applications.

SocialText CEO Eugene Lee argues that Twitter might be a better model than Facebook for next-gen communications within companies, so-called Enterprise 2.0. Facebook’s trouble? Reciprocal friending. The problem, he says, is that employees on corporate social networks start collecting friendships of execs. “Because the Rolodex is public, it becomes a matter of VP trading cards.”

A preferable model for corporate relationships, he says, is Twitter, where people lend their attention, not necessarily their friendship. In SocialText’s Twitter-like corporate offering, Signals , more people are likely to “follow” the CEO—assuming he or she has anything interesting to Tweet.

Despite the sales context of this statement I cannot agree more on this. As the objective of social apps within the enterprise is to increase transparency we need to inhibit any situation of asynchronous information. And refused reciprocal relations create asynchronous information. So "following" shows already my interest and my "trust" as well as recognition of any kind of "authority" of the followed person – but to refuse someone "following" me is to hindering him/her to get information he/she is interested in.

On the other hand there might be staff members that share some kind of "non public" information e.g. some R&D folks – how to proceed with these. Are the enterprises already ready for the full transparent information flow? Especially as the non-transparent competitor next door is just waiting to expose some competitive information and advantages?

What are your thoughts on this?

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Bjoern Negelmann

Björn Negelmann verantwortet die inhaltlichen Teile der Veranstaltungsaktivitäten von Kongress Media und ist darüber hinaus auch Kopf des an Kongress Media angeschlossenen Research-Hauses N:Sight Research. Er reflektiert seine Beobachtungen über die Entwicklung der Themen sowohl in den Corporate-Blogs von Kongress Media und N:Sight als auch in den Fachblogs Enterprise Digital Blog (zum Social Collaboration & Future of Work Thema), auf Espresso-Digital.de (zum Thema Social Kommunikation & Marketing) sowie im Digital Experience Blog (zum Thema Digital Experience & die Transformation in Marketing, Vertrieb und Service). Darüber hinaus moderiert und betreut er die diversen Online-Communities und Online-Veranstaltungen von Kongress Media.

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maricela morales

your question seems framed only around these two tools and Lee’s comment “might be better” points out that we still don’t have the best solution. twitter reflects more the real live hierarchical structure of a company with regards to following someone you grant some level of authority or who has it by their position within the structure, BUT isn’t the idea of social networking to provide a more equal model vs the boss/employee? How about pushing a business model for twitter (since it is better) towards the knowledge like not follow, but exchanging…?

28/10/2009 at 1:32 PM
maricela morales

your question seems framed only around these two tools and Lee’s comment “might be better” points out that we still don’t have the best solution. twitter reflects more the real live hierarchical structure of a company with regards to following someone you grant some level of authority or who has it by their position within the structure, BUT isn’t the idea of social networking to provide a more equal model vs the boss/employee? How about pushing a business model for twitter (since it is better) towards the knowledge like not follow, but exchanging…?

28/10/2009 at 1:32 PM
Faisal Asif

Great article, it really made me think about the other side of creating transparencies between businesses, that’s a plus point that removing transparencies between businesses would boost performances & efficiencies but at the same time it’s a draw back or rather it doubles the competition between two competitors.

28/10/2009 at 1:33 PM
Faisal Asif

Great article, it really made me think about the other side of creating transparencies between businesses, that’s a plus point that removing transparencies between businesses would boost performances & efficiencies but at the same time it’s a draw back or rather it doubles the competition between two competitors.

28/10/2009 at 1:33 PM
enterprise20

Posted: What is the right relationship model for social apps within the enterprise? http://bit.ly/3zMKkV

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

28/10/2009 at 1:39 PM
lammiia

Reading:What is the right relationship model for #socialapps within the enterprise? http://bit.ly/3zMKkV (by @enterprise20)

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

28/10/2009 at 1:43 PM
CarlosAggio

RT: @enterprise20: Posted: What is the right relationship model for social apps within the enterprise? http://bit.ly/3zMKkV

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

28/10/2009 at 1:48 PM
ypoxx

RT @enterprise20: Posted: What is the right relationship model for social apps within the enterprise? http://bit.ly/3zMKkV

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

28/10/2009 at 2:01 PM
webtechman

What is the right relationship model for Enterprise 2.0 #socialapps? http://bit.ly/3zMKkV via @lammiia @enterprise20 Hybrids r good 2!

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

28/10/2009 at 2:13 PM
BGleba

RT Posted: What is the right relationship model for social apps within the enterprise? http://bit.ly/3zMKkV (via @enterprise20)

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

28/10/2009 at 2:19 PM
webtechman

@lammiia RE: http://bit.ly/3zMKkV Enterprise 2.0 #socialapps could be a hybrid of Twitter/Facebook to support improved collaboration

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

28/10/2009 at 2:38 PM
schaeferblick

Since there are many German readers on this blog, I might refer to http://www.besser20.de/soziale-netzwerke-im-unternehmen-warum-xing-das-falsche-vorbild-ist/144/, basically stating that “follow” is more apropriate in a business context than linking as a “friend” like in a social network, e.g. XING

28/10/2009 at 3:28 PM
schaeferblick

Since there are many German readers on this blog, I might refer to http://www.besser20.de/soziale-netzwerke-im-unternehmen-warum-xing-das-falsche-vorbild-ist/144/, basically stating that “follow” is more apropriate in a business context than linking as a “friend” like in a social network, e.g. XING

28/10/2009 at 3:28 PM
enterprise20

@eugenelee posted some thoughts regarding your BusinessWeek interview http://bit.ly/3zMKkV – would be happy to hear your thoughts

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

28/10/2009 at 3:49 PM

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