Being social at work: which communications model to adopt for the enterprise?
by Matthew Hodgson
Web 2.0 technology presents the modern organisation with a plethora of means for communicating new information to staff. While some of us are now running to install wikis and blogs as a vehicle to achieve enterprise 2.0 nirvana there are some important considerations that need to be given time before we jump for, say, Yammer over Twitter, that go beyond the fear of our internal information being communicated outside the organisation.
A very interesting article by Sinan Aral, Erik Brynjolfsson, and Marshall Van Alstyne [1] on access to information through social networks provides some food for thought on this issue. It’s a fascinating examination of how information flows from one person to another and complements a number of other similar studies that look at how social relationships can either block access to information or enhance access to it.
Obviously, traditional communications models focus on the delivery of information as a top-down process, and as a result, limit the amount of shared knowledge that can be passed between the organisational silos. Because of the linear nature of knowledge transfer blockers can be a significant problem in accessing new information.
Some organisations, though, have adopted various collaboration tools as a means of complementing existing traditional communications channels in an attempt to break-down internal silos and blockers that can limit access to new information. In some instances, these tools also facilitate collaboration with clients and stakeholders outside the organisation.
While there are some obvious advantages with this approach it still doesn’t fully address modern research on how people access information. Aral and Brynjolfsson et. al.’s research notes that:
- Network diversity is associated with higher levels of productivity for task based information workers
- Network diversity is associated with performance, in part because diverse contacts provide access to novel information and resources
- Age, gender, industry experience, education have little effect on access to diverse information, highlighting the importance of network structure for information advantage.
These findings support a more expansive adoption of social media tools within the workplace to more efficiently leverage the social networks that individuals have both inside and outside the organisation, particularly given the homogenous nature of networks within an organisation due to the constraints and norming factors of culture.
The important take home message is simple — the more you leverage individual’s social networks the greater their access to information and the higher the levels of productivity that will result for them and the enterprise.
M
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1. Aral, S., Brynjolfsson, E. Marshall Van Alstyne, E. M., 2006. Network Structure & Information Advantage: Structural Determinants of Access to Novel Information. Workshop on Information Systems Economics.
Thought...
