Facebook has more than 500 million active users, 70 percent of them outside the U.S. Twitter has 100 million users sending 140 million “tweets” (short online messages) a day. Both of the social networks made headlines recently for their role in helping Egyptian and Tunisian protesters organize rallies and stay in communication with one another. But few people know how Facebook, Twitter and other social networks contribute to communication and collaboration every day – not just in extraordinary circumstances, but for business professionals, researchers, educators, innovators and others around the world.
At Innovation 360, for example, we have connected with several innovation thought leaders on Twitter. We tapped one expert, for example, to co-facilitate a recent business model innovation workshop. Of course, there’s nothing new about connecting with colleagues in your field – unless the colleague resides 4,000 Km away in Europe and you met him on Twitter.
On LinkedIn, our Middle East Innovation group has gathered nearly 1,200 people with a common interest in the topic. The group’s discussions range from regional innovation efforts to entrepreneurship, idea generation to patent applications. Plus, every person in the group is free to connect with every other group member, opening the door for a wealth of online – and offline — collaboration.
Facebook is another area where Innovation 360 is actively promoting dialogue about creativity, innovation in business and government, entrepreneurship and the like. Nearly 35 percent of the UAE population is on Facebook, 49 percent in Qatar. Thus, it’s another social networking tool that we believe can lead to knowledge sharing and collaboration among like-minded individuals.
The Future of Social Networking
The drawback of popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn is their popularity. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the conversations happening on these social networks. Given Innovation 360’s experience, the potential for collaboration and knowledge sharing is still great, especially if you listen (instead of just talking), and look for the real people behind the user account (those who are not only promoting similar ideas but also achieving real world progress).
However, the next evolution in social networking holds even more promise for collaboration. The future of social networking belongs to private social networks, either restricted to certain members such as employees of one organization, or open to anyone but dedicated to a specific topic.
For example, ProjectEarth is a social networking site set up to help schools and students to collaborate on solving global environmental issues. Another example, Orthomind is a social networking site only for orthopedic surgeons, which enables them to stay on top of new treatments and discuss such topics as such as clinical scenarios, health care reform and professional conduct.
Social networking sites with a focus on specific geographic regions are also gaining popularity. AreebaAreeba and ArabLinkedIn are two recent sites designed to connect people living in or interested in the Middle East.
With tools like Ning and Yammer , it’s fairly easy for anyone to build their own social networking site. What’s more difficult is to run a successful social networking site that people turn to for valuable knowledge as well as networking and collaboration opportunities.
Social Networks for Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration
For fans of sites like Friendster and MySpace, even Twitter and Facebook, it may be hard to think of social networking as anything but fun and games. Social networking is popular with young and old alike because it gives people a chance to stay in touch with relatives, friends and classmates. Most sites also offer free online games that are surprisingly engaging despite their simplicity.
However, there’s more to social networking than playing games and staying in touch. Businesses are using this new medium to engage current and potential customers, using social networking sites not only for marketing and PR, but also for customer support and to solicit feedback.
More interesting on the collaboration front, though, is that researchers are looking to social networking as an innovative way to mine raw data and disseminate results. The UK-based Research Information Network, which has created a set of social networking (aka, social media) guidelines for researchers, sums it up well:
“Social media is an important technological trend that has big implications for how researchers (and people in general) communicate and collaborate. Researchers have a huge amount to gain from engaging with social media in various aspects of their work.”
In social networking, both researchers and businesses now have access to a myriad of previously inaccessible data, which existed only verbally or in hard to collate written formats such as meeting notes and emails. With social networking, so many people are sharing their ideas, thoughts, problems and solutions in cyberspace that we are collectively creating a vast pool of knowledge and insights that, in most cases, goes beyond the banal observation of what we ate for breakfast.
This is the reason that the U.S. Library of Congress is archiving every tweet. As ZDnet blogger Dion Hinchcliffe points out, social networks are superior to other methods of communication and collaboration, even face-to-face meetings, when it comes to “reach of knowledge” and “reusability.” In other words, because of the length of time that social networking data can be accessed (years in some cases), discussions that take place in the social sphere are extremely valuable, and social networking itself, when implemented correctly, can be viewed as a preferred method of collaboration.
The key to communication and collaboration success is to design a social network that not only connects users with one another, but also offers innate value to users beyond their interactions. The most successful social networks of the future will be those with some exclusivity (either in membership or focus), which enable users to engage one another in a variety of innovative ways (both on and off the site), and which also offer high-quality site-driven content.
This content — articles, case studies, videos, webinars, podcasts, or any type of value-added content that makes the site a destination in and of itself — combined with dynamic user interaction on the site – beyond old-school technology such as forums – will be the next stage in the evolution of social networking.
This is not to discourage the use of sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, which are great proving grounds for sharpening social networking skills. Even in these vast arenas, meaningful connections can be made if we’re diligent and honest, and knowledge-sharing is commonplace (although sometimes difficult to organize for later reference). What these social networking sites have started, others will refine and distill into specialized centers of online communication that will enable everyday collaboration.
Have any examples of social networking collaboration? Disagree with social networking as a collaboration medium? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.
About Debra Jennings
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