The introduction of Web 2.0 social media into the enterprise creates large amounts of potentially useful information about the social side of business processes.  The key is gaining awareness and access to this social intelligence. Paula Thronton recent covers this issue nicely in The Context of “Intent.” She opens with, “Two differentiating attributes of 2.0 are adaptation and emergence. Adaptive systems rely on feedback loops for continuous assessment. Emergence is the result of self-organizing adaptation.”

Paula later adds, “The goal is to bring together relevant facts to inform discovery (the possibilities) that then lead to design — especially adaptive design to support individuals interacting with or on behalf of a business. Such facts are often difficult to find and difficult to effectively interpret and leverage.” And then offers, “A more 2.0 approach would bring the facts into the context they’re related to, featuring (draw attention to via teasers) certain findings in tidbits, leading to more detail.”

I added in a comment on Paula’s post that enterprise 2.0 provides a wealth of social “data” as a byproduct of its use. We are only beginning to figure out how to harvest this content. The organizations that do this are truly working in the enterprise 2.0 space.

Increasing awareness in context and finding related content is the goal of Darwin Ecosystem. Its Awareness Engine™ gives users the ability to perceive and be conscious of events and patterns of activities captured in the enterprise and Web 2.0.  The introduction of Web 2.0 tools into the enterprise also opens up possibilities for even more information silos if these tools do not connect. Darwin provides a way to see emerging patterns of related content across information generated through a variety of tools.  As a disclosure before going further, I am working with Darwin and have a small stake in the firm.

Darwin reduces the effort of keeping-up with enterprise 2.0 content (Information Overload Management). It classifies and correlates patterns of the business activities trapped in your Web. Through its Scan Cloud™ Darwin makes visible and measurable the value of the enterprise 2.0 content (Awareness and Monitoring). You can see related items in a tag cloud like visualization and this relationship shifts as you move through the cloud. This dynamic nature makes it easy for users to see the correlation across the enterprise 2.0 content (Discovering and Sharing).

Using correlation metrics based on Chaos Theory Darwin looks for the emergence of correlated themes within chaotic content.  This moves Darwin away from the voting and popularity rankings used by many information aggregators and search engines to rank information. By using correlation metrics, it does not require a known process or taxonomy to discover useful and related information. Darwin allows for the emergence that Paula discussed. You can set up ongoing filters or “attractors” to explore emerging themes in specific topics of interest or simply look at the broad picture.

Darwin is a not a replacement of existing enterprise 2.0 technologies, dashboards, and document management tools. It is designed to complement and leverage these technologies by making their tacit knowledge more visible. Darwin looks at events, blogs and other Web 2.0 sources that may correlate with the enterprise actions, its competitors and the voice of its critics and customers.  This allows the enterprise to be capable of more easily discovering its own knowledge assets as well as its market and competitive positioning.

For example, using Darwin’s Awareness Engine, a program manager in Marketing becomes aware of concerns in R&D, Sales or other initiatives that are emerging as he/she tries to promote a product (all without having to wait and depend the next meeting or coffee break encounter).  They can also see competitive moves that may correlate with their own plans or the efforts of their customers and prospects. Likewise management can have a high-level view of what topics are emerging across all divisions and initiatives to better steer the business or measure the effectiveness of the vision’s execution, in the process discovering emerging and stronger initiatives or employees that are noteworthy.

It is a Web browser application (Scan Cloud™) or it can become a custom solution through API access. It is delivered through a Web server with services and a database correlating the different Web 2.0 sources.  For the enterprise there is an on-premise solution running on Ruby on Rails and making use of RSS feeds.  Its Virtual Cortex™ database can be set on Oracle, MS-SQL or mySQL according to scalability needs. You can go from inside out so an enterprise can correlate their initiatives, knowledge and business intelligence against the pulse of the Web. The application is currently in Alpha stage and available for use.  You can access the Web edition through free registration on the Darwin Ecosystem site.  The enterprise edition is available for early adopters.

Here is a brief sample of how Darwin works. I set up a query on social media and saw the word, gain, in the cluster shown below. I looked to see why the word, gain, is associated with social media by selecting gain and highlighting the cluster of correlations between social media and gain.

Then I saw three articles that matched this correction in the past few days as you see in the image below.

There was as story about how NASDAQ launches social network site as shown below. This was very interesting to me.

I also saw an article that reported in the UK that social networking sites accounts for 25% of display ads, as well as an article on using Facebook traffic to drive brand loyalty. None of these articles appeared on a Google search on social media and gain. Nor did they appear on Google News on the topic.  Below is a shot of the complete Darwin interface so you can the relationship of the detailed components shown above. This is a sample of how you can discover new information through correlation that is hard, if not impossible to find in traditional search.

You can also find stories about themes that are emerging in the Web, as well as images that correlate with content as shown in results about a very recent helicopter crash in the Pacific ocean.

Darwin also allows you to correlate content in traditional mainstream media with what is happening in the blogs and other social media. In 2008 Darwin won a Young Entrepreneurs Award from the Office for Science and Technology of the French Embassy in the United States. The Young Entrepreneurs Initiative (YEi) is a platform for mentoring and networking US-based entrepreneurs who understand the importance of internationalizing their vision and their activity, and who wish to set up a technology venture in France.

They recently started the Darwin Discovery Engine Blog to provide more background on their efforts, as well as commentary on content issues on the Web and enterprise 2.0.