Social collaboration for dummies

411 Pages·2014·15.049 MB·English

by  Carr, David F

Social
Collaboration
by David F. Carr
Social Collaboration For Dummies®
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013948026
ISBN 978-1-118-65854-3 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-65853-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-65855-0 (ebk);
ISBN 978-1-118-865856-7 (ebk)
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents at a Glance
Introduction ................................................................ 1
Part I: Getting Started with Social Collaboration ............ 5
Chapter 1: Connecting Business Collaboration with Social Networking ....................7
Chapter 2: Getting Familiar with Social Collaboration Tools .....................................41
Chapter 3: Putting Social Collaboration to Work ........................................................69
Part II: Organizing Work with Social Collaboration....... 85
Chapter 4: Everyday Sharing on a Social Network ......................................................87
Chapter 5: Working Your Network ..............................................................................105
Chapter 6: Managing Projects and Tasks....................................................................115
Chapter 7: Collaborating on Content ..........................................................................133
Part III: Exploring the Social Collaboration
Software Market ...................................................... 147
Chapter 8: Beginning Your Search for a Social Collaboration Platform .................149
Chapter 9: Charting the Products and Vendors ........................................................171
Chapter 10: Social Collaboration in the Cloud ...........................................................193
Chapter 11: Standards for Social Networking and Integration ................................213
Part IV: Managing Social Collaboration ..................... 227
Chapter 12: Succeeding with Social Collaboration ....................................................229
Chapter 13: Managing Successful Collaboration Communities ...............................249
Chapter 14: Engaging External Collaborators ............................................................269
Part V: Playing Your Part in a Social Business ........... 277
Chapter 15: The CEO and Executive Management Guide to Social Collaboration ...279
Chapter 16: The CIO Guide to Social Collaboration ..................................................293
Chapter 17: The Workplace Leader’s Guide to Social Collaboration ......................301
Chapter 18: Social Collaboration for the Sales Team ................................................311
Chapter 19: Social Collaboration for the Worker Bee ...............................................323
Part VI: The Part of Tens .......................................... 331
Chapter 20: Ten Common Themes in Social Collaboration Success Stories .........333
Chapter 21: Ten Obstacles to Social Collaboration Success ....................................341
Chapter 22: Ten Ways to Make Social Collaboration Pay Off ..................................349
Appendix: Case Studies: Learn from Others ................ 361
Index ...................................................................... 375
Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................. 1
About This Book ..............................................................................................1
Foolish Assumptions .......................................................................................2
Icons Used in This Book .................................................................................3
Beyond the Book .............................................................................................3
Where to Go from Here ...................................................................................4
Part I: Getting Started with Social Collaboration ............ 5
Chapter 1: Connecting Business Collaboration with
Social Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Defining Social Collaboration .........................................................................8
Seeing how social collaboration can help your business .................9
Social collaboration: not about cloning Facebook ..........................12
Socializing software .............................................................................13
Making social networking serve business purposes .......................16
Distinguishing between Collaboration and Social Networking ................19
Accelerating teamwork with collaboration ......................................20
Reaching across the organization with social networking .............21
Bringing Collaboration and Social Networking Together .........................24
Sharing expertise within the organization ........................................24
Introducing new collaborations .........................................................25
Finding new connections through existing connections ................26
Linking knowledge, documents, and projects to people ................27
Competing and Coexisting with E-Mail .......................................................28
Providing social discussions as an alternative to Reply to All ......30
Linking to documents rather than attaching them..........................31
Encouraging sharing beyond the personal inbox ............................32
Bridging the gap between social collaboration and e-mail habits ....33
Exploring Practical Applications of Social Collaboration ........................35
Helping sales teams close more deals with social collaboration ....35
Finding answers to questions.............................................................37
Coordinating projects from the social activity stream ...................38
Generating ideas for products and business improvements .........39
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Social Collaboration For Dummies
Chapter 2: Getting Familiar with Social Collaboration Tools . . . . . . . 41
Introducing Social Collaboration Tools ......................................................42
Taking a look at corporate activity streams.....................................43
Sharing links, media, and documents ...............................................47
Determining what to post to an activity stream ..............................48
Monitoring an activity stream ............................................................49
Connecting external applications to an activity stream .................50
Addressing your post to a specific person or group.......................52
Moving Beyond Social Media .......................................................................55
Introducing Facebook and Twitter users to social collaboration ....55
Keeping social collaboration productive with policies
and community management .........................................................58
Navigating the Enterprise Social Graph ......................................................59
Defining the social graph ....................................................................60
Making friends with reciprocal links .................................................61
Following people and subscribing to their feeds.............................61
Subscribing to feeds about documents, events, projects,
or customer records ........................................................................62
Searching for expertise .......................................................................62
Searching the social graph .................................................................63
Forming Groups .............................................................................................64
Making room for projects ...................................................................65
Configuring levels of privacy in a group ...........................................65
Working Together on Content .....................................................................66
Creating, editing, and linking documents wiki-style ........................66
Incorporating file sharing ...................................................................66
Forecasting the Future of Social Collaboration .........................................67
Chapter 3: Putting Social Collaboration to Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Harnessing the Energy of Social Networks for Business ..........................69
Gearing Up for Implementation ...................................................................71
Forming the team .................................................................................71
Organizing advocates ..........................................................................73
Borrowing freely from consumer innovations .................................74
Branding the network ..........................................................................75
Publicizing the launch .........................................................................75
Addressing Enterprise Requirements for Social Collaboration ...............76
Ensuring security and balancing trade-offs ......................................77
Archiving content for backup and legal discovery..........................78
Integrating with existing portal and document management
infrastructure ....................................................................................78
Linking to corporate directories and HR systems ..........................79
Layering social connections onto existing applications .................79
Connecting multiple social applications ...........................................80
Putting Social Collaboration in Context .....................................................81
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Table of Contents
Part II: Organizing Work with Social Collaboration ....... 85
Chapter 4: Everyday Sharing on a Social Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Sharing and Targeting Posts ........................................................................88
Posting a simple status message .......................................................88
Knowing your audience ......................................................................89
Sharing with the entire organization .................................................90
Sharing with a group ...........................................................................91
Tagging other users to get their attention........................................93
Classifying posts with hashtags or formal taxonomy .....................94
Choosing Types of Posts Useful for Social Collaboration ........................96
Asking a question .................................................................................96
Polling the organization ......................................................................97
Thanking people and recognizing employees for achievement ....98
Sharing Files and Media ................................................................................99
Sharing files and documents ............................................................100
Working with collaborators on a business record ........................100
Sharing images and video .................................................................101
Responding to Another User’s Post ..........................................................102
Chapter 5: Working Your Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Making and Cultivating Connections ........................................................105
Returning the favor ............................................................................107
Cultivating connections ....................................................................109
Looking Professional Online ......................................................................110
Fleshing out your profile ...................................................................110
Answering questions .........................................................................111
Sharing useful information ...............................................................112
Joining the right groups ....................................................................112
Having fun while showing respect for the workplace ...................113
Chapter 6: Managing Projects and Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Sharing Progress Reports as Simple Social Posts ...................................116
Using More Sophisticated Social Task Management ..............................117
Creating a task as a social object .....................................................119
Assigning tasks to other users .........................................................119
Setting deadlines ................................................................................120
Exploring additional social task management options .................121
Structuring Work in Podio ..........................................................................121
Introducing Podio apps and tasks ...................................................121
Building a Podio app .........................................................................124
Creating a task ....................................................................................125
Creating related tasks .......................................................................126
Managing Activities in IBM Connections ..................................................128
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Social Collaboration For Dummies
Comparing Approaches to Social Task Management .............................130
Building social features into project management tools ..............131
Adding tasks to a social platform as a social object type ............131
Coordinating activities through informal social sharing ..............132
Chapter 7: Collaborating on Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Sharing Document Files ..............................................................................133
Uploading and downloading .............................................................134
Previewing in the browser ................................................................135
Checking in and checking out ..........................................................136
Sharing documents as social objects ..............................................136
Writing and Editing Documents Together ................................................138
Collaborating on content, wiki-style ................................................138
Editing simultaneously, à la Google Docs .......................................142
Keeping Content under Control .................................................................144
Part III: Exploring the Social Collaboration
Software Market ....................................................... 147
Chapter 8: Beginning Your Search for a Social
Collaboration Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Developing a Plan for Choosing a Social Collaboration System ............150
Identifying Key Distinguishing Features ...................................................152
Mobilizing for results ........................................................................152
Searching for the best social search engine ...................................153
Managing content beyond the status post .....................................156
File sharing and the cloud ................................................................157
Motivating behavior with gamification ...........................................157
Supporting innovation and ideation ................................................159
Choosing Software to Organize Ideas .......................................................160
Understanding the Different Types of Vendors and Products ..............162
Comparing established system vendors versus startups ............162
Seeking simplicity ..............................................................................164
Going lightweight ...............................................................................165
Insisting on sophistication ...............................................................166
When you need it all ..........................................................................167
Weighing Trade-Offs ....................................................................................167
Getting started trumps perfection ...................................................168
Trusting future features ....................................................................168