Does social computing really deliver significantly better business performance? Or is it merely a minor incremental improvement? While many cases have shown successful implementations of collaborative social media style applications in the workplace, the benefit of Enterprise 2.0 is still a hotly debated topic. While the core concept is the integration of Web 2.0 and social networking workflow models into business processes, there are still a wide range of interpretations and outcomes that make it difficult to hone in on measurable returns.

Here are ten issues that commonly arise when mixing business with social media…

1. Lack of social media literacy amongst workers.

2. A perception that social tools won’t work well in a particular industry.

3. Social software is still perceived as too risky to use for core business activities.

4. Can’t get enough senior executives engaged with social tools.

5. There is vapor lock between IT and the social computing initiative.

6. Need to prove ROI before there will be support for social software.

7. Security concerns are holding up pilot projects/adoption plans.

8. The needs around community management have come as a surprise.

9. Difficulties sustaining external engagement.

10. Struggling to survive due to unexpected success.

Source: Enterprise Web 2.0

Socialcast this Wednesday released an official developer API. After weeks of beta testing with select clients the API is now available for all Socialcast members. Socialcast is a real-time collaboration platform that allows companies to communicate and collaborate via activity streams where coworkers share text, files, images and links. Socialcast also allows for users to organize groups to share information with enterprise teams.

The Socialcast API allows developers to create applications through a robust set of operations to interact with activity streams. Socialcast also offers users a desktop client built off their API.

“Socialcast Founder and CEO Timothy Young mentioned that Socialcast aims to be a platform, and not a tool like Yammer, or Twitter,” says TechCrunch reporter Daniel Brusilovsky.

When viewing the Socialcast website I see this eWeek quote featured as the latest buzz, “Socialcast is like a secure Twitter for the Enterprise.”

What I’m going to take away from these contradicting statements is that Socialcast is working on developing and enhancing features to break away from the “enterprise Twitter” mold, however bases the platform on similar functionality.

New research shows that Twitter is gaining recognition as a useful business resource among younger demographics. A survey conducted by AIIM shows that 27% of 18-30 year olds see the value in Twitter as a crowdsourcing and feedback tool, compared to just 7% of participants over the age of 45. Twitter has become popular for young professionals as a way to find answers from experts, poll their followers, share opinions, and communicate during conferences and while traveling.

Business users tend to be more engaged on Twitter than personal users. Of those surveyed, half of business users actively post and contribute to conversations rather than just following.

“We’ve been tracking the rapid growth of Enterprise 2.0 – the business use of social media – for a couple of years,” says Atle Skjekkeland, VP of AIIM, “but Twitter has grown much faster than anything we’ve seen before. It seems to me that Twitter brings back such quick answers from any expert community that it cannot fail to have a lasting place within the general business toolbox.”

Of the 788 respondents to the AIIM survey, 34% had a Twitter account.

Source: AIIM

Collaber on Web comes to market this week as an extension of the Collaber Desktop real-time collaboration software suite. Collaber allows users to share files, folders, tasks, events and track project activities through unified team workspaces. In addition to Web based access, new features include a multi-calendar view, improved HTML editing, keyboard shortcuts, advanced alerts, enhanced filters and the launch of an application store where developers can offer new tools built on the Collaber API.

Users can maintain a single Collaber account to access and manage their projects from the Web or desktop.

Source: Online PR News

Zoomerang this week delivers increased sharing and collaboration for businesses seeking efficient and effective solutions for managing online surveys. Zoomerang Enterprise offers the ability to build a library of complete survey questionnaires and results, robust search functions and a dashboard for collaborators to easily access and manage survey information. The centralized architecture allows disconnected employees and teams to come together and share survey results and templates to increase productivity.

This service is included at no additional cost with a Zoomerang Premium subscription.

Source: Zoomerang

This weekend I was glancing at the television and took in a Best Buy commercial that I know I’ve seen heard before. Obviously I wasn’t really paying attention prior because this time I noticed the Twitter URL plain as day on the screen. I’m the type of person who does more listening to the TV than watching due to the fact that my face is usually buried between two computer screens.

[Taking a minute to watch commercials one and two again on YouTube]

Now that I’ve had a chance to scrutinize the commercials I see they are acting out the Twitter reference. I “get it” because I actually use Twitter, but I can guarantee very few who have never tweeted will make the connection, even with the URL on the screen. The name Twelpforce will definitely have several people confused. If they made at least one vocal reference to Twitter during the commercial they would most likely see stronger results.

For the first time we see a major brand promoting a Twitter based service on network television commercials. Corporate websites taking a backseat to social media is a trending topic this year. Not too long ago we talked about Volkswagen promoting their Facebook fan page on their commercials.

Here is how Twelpforce works: consumers tweet a question @twelpforce or include the #twelpforce hash tag in their post and a pool of Best Buy employees can answer via any Twitter enabled device. What’s interesting is how Best Buy is generating a strong buzz around their efforts to use Twitter as a customer service platform. What’s flat out amazing is they have what are probably mostly hourly wage employees participating in customer service off the clock. @dustinbby tweets, “Having a blast helping customers with @twelpforce! Answered many questions in the last 2 days. Time flew by at my second job today.” Well at least off Best Buy’s clock.

The culture of organizations is the most common barrier to implementing collaborative Enterprise 2.0 technologies into businesses today. Employees are commonly set in their ways and introducing new applications and ideas can upset the daily workflow and create resistance. The good news is that there are proven ways to expedite cultural changes within companies.

To begin we must describe some general use cases in order to determine what type of results we can expect from Enterprise 2.0 initiatives. The first general use case is “experimental.” In this case we are relying on small test groups and company evangelists to move things forward. Our second is a “well-defined” use case, where someone in the company has signed off on the new social software.

Looking at “well-defined” use cases with senior management support we tend to have a range of options available to overcome company culture when introducing new applications.

Remove Alternatives – Simply remove the old software and require employees to use the new. This is the quickest way people will adapt. Sameer Patel’s case notes how a leading chip manufacturer gave workers 45 days to migrate their emails to new Wiki software before the email server was wiped clean.

Storytelling – New efficiencies and opportunities for growth are envisioned by senior management as they outline ideas for the workplace of tomorrow. “People need to have a sense of what the future looks like, so be very clear on that,” says BP’s Fiona MacLeod.

Incentives – Recognize and reward top contributors and celebrate breakthroughs and milestones. Social software participation can also be included in performance reviews as suggested by Andrew McAfee.

Executive Reminders – If upper management is making it very clear that this is the direction things are going, people tend to jump on the bus quickly. No one wants to risk losing their paycheck by ignoring company initiatives.

When in “experimental” stages many of the direct approaches to “well-defined” use cases are not available. Here are some tactics that are effective when experimenting with enterprise social networks…

Model Behavior – Project leaders and evangelists can influence usage by removing alternatives from their own routines. If the only way for fellow employees to communicate with these leaders is through the social software then more will have to adapt.

New Use Cases – By introducing various new cases where social business applications can be used, more employees will make connections and see benefits.

Senior Sponsor – After an initial test launch try to attract the attention of a senior manager to build support.

Measuring performance for “well-defined” use cases can be done by deciding whether the job set out to perform was accomplished. Also it can be benchmarked against the replaced processes. Measuring “experimental” usage is done by collecting wins. The cases where the software was helpful to an employee, turnaround time was increased, new information was found and new connections were made are all examples of wins.

Source: Social Computing Journal

This week Microsoft Office 2010 was released as a technical preview for testers. New collaboration features will be the highlight of Office 2010 applications. Unified and real-time communication products are proliferating throughout the market and Microsoft is hoping to keep pace, along with it’s strong grip on the business world.

Unified Communication – While working in Microsoft Office 2010 you will be able to keep track of which colleagues are online, working on a project, and available to chat or join a meeting.

Real-Time Document Collaboration & Co-Authoring Projects – Everyone knows emailing a document around the office for corrections and approvals can easily turn into a multitude of out-of-sync copies. New features in Office 2010 will allow you to see who is working on a specific document. Groups and permissions can be set to allow specific users to edit sections of a document.

Remote Access – Office files such as Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint slides stored in the cloud will be available remotely from smartphones or any Web-browser enabled device.

The ship date for Office 2010 can be expected around third quarter next year. Along with the full-featured suite, Microsoft will be offering a limited Web-based free version of Office 2010 where users can access documents via the browser, and not just Internet Explorer.

The latest from productivity application developers Zoho is Projects 2.0, an online project and team collaboration suite. On top of standard project management tools such as reports and scheduling, Zoho enhances it’s offering by integrating popular Web 2.0 features. Here is what you can expect to see in this release…

Project Planning through milestones, tasks, priorities, completion, dependencies and ownership, along with the ability to import from Microsoft Project.

Project Collaboration features include a Project Stream to track recent activities, User Status for Twitter-like status updates, Shared Project Calendar to stay up to date on upcoming deadlines and meetings, Project Wikis, and Centralized File Sharing with folders, tags, search and versioning. Integration with Zoho Office is also available for document creation and editing. Discussion features are enhanced by interactive forums and live chat.

Project Tracking is easy through the Project Dashboard which offers an at-a-glance view of project activity. Additional features include reports for visual evaluation of project progress and timesheet tools for tracking time spent on tasks.

A free version of Zoho Projects 2.0 is available for unlimited users working on a single project. Additional projects and increased storage require paid plans available from $12 – $80 per month.

Security concerns are nothing new when talking about the Internet. Since the dawn of the World Wide Web as a communications network for bringing the masses online there have been spammers, hackers, and identity thieves proliferating in the dark corners of the Internet. Dishonesty has been around since the evolution of man so shunning the Internet because of security risks is silly, but taking measures to protect your data is not.

Understanding the risks of sharing information online and across social networks is the first step for individuals and companies to protect their identity, reputation, and data in a Web 2.0 world. Common Internet security risks include the following…

Data Theft – Information is stored online in databases that can be accessible to many. Popular online destinations usually take stringent measures to keep their databases secure but smaller sites and applications can be more lax on security. No database is 100% secure so be wary of how much of your sensitive information you share online.

Information Leakage – When talking about business and social networking there is always the possibility that an employee sharing information online whether in a personal or business context can unintentionally reveal company information that should not have been shared. Company policies that outline Internet usage are important for setting boundaries for employees on what information can be discussed in a social setting.

Targeted Attacks – By collecting information that may have unintentionally been leaked over the Internet, persons or companies can launch targeted attacks on their adversaries by citing multiple online sources.

Software Vulnerability – Bugs and flaws are the nature of the beast when talking about any type of software. With the mass amount of online applications launching every day there are undoubtedly security issues in the code that developers are unaware of or are having issues patching up.

Spam and Phishing – Unsolicited advertisement spam is a nuisance in itself but phishing for passwords, credit cards, and other sensitive information through spam or hacked accounts can be a big security risk.

Content Alteration – If ongoing measures are not taken to keep information about your company secure and valid then hackers and impostors can alter or generate content related to your company for personal gain or defamation.

Malware Dissemination – Social networks are an easy way to distribute malware. Hacked and impersonated accounts can trick users into visiting websites that infect computers with viruses, worms, Trojans, bots, keyloggers, spyware and more.

Business Reputation – Targeted attacks, content alteration, or just plain trash talking can damage your business reputation. It’s important to keep track of how your company and brand names are being used online. Social media analysis and reputation management solutions are available specifically for this reason.

Source: The Risks of Social Networking and the Corporate Network

Related: Some Twitter Users Likely Unaware of Security Risks