Open Source CMS

" Akanksha Goel, newly appointed Editor-in-Chief of Stuff Singapore -- a gadgets and technology lifestyle publication launched in the UK five years ago -- is a final-year marketing and corporate communication student at Singapore Management University. Goel, who also helped organise Asia's first PodCamp held at the university recently, talked to Knowledge@SMU about how social media compels us to rethink culture, and why companies should take advantage of these new channels to grow their businesses."

"A NEW fad is sweeping across Silicon Valley, causing excitement, confusion and hyperbole not seen since the dotcom bubble. It began in May, when Mark Zuckerberg, ten days after turning 23, took the stage in a San Francisco warehouse and announced that he was opening up Facebook to outside programmers. Anyone can now build little programs, or - widgets, into the network. To illustrate his idea, Mr Zuckerberg projected onto the wall behind him a social graphic pattern of nodes representing Facebook users and the links among them.

Nice, this is one of the reasons, internal email spam, why organizations are starting to use social software applications. "e-mail of the species deadlier than the mail?" - from confused in calcutta.

"McAfee said he first realized the potential of Web 2.0 technologies to become an Enterprise 2.0 platform while studying more traditional corporate software applications including ERP, BPM, supply chain management and customer relationship management (CRM). At first, he was skeptical about the value of Web 2.0 for business, but hands-on experience convinced him that it had potential.

This idea has been around for some time. I first read about it in, "small pieces loosely joined", by Dave Weinberger (one of the authors of the cluetrain). Anyway, Micheal Schrage has a good post, "Round-off Error? Hardly!" MIT Technology Review that applies the math. to the idea.

With business social networking software - managers and employees now have a system for connecting informal interactions and discovering new information flows.

So, stop reading about social applications and collaboration tools. Unleash your imagination and start experimenting. The real power of social software can only be appreciated with hands-on experience. Consider a pilot project.

As the need for knowledge workers increases, hopefully, business development managers will consider these innovative management ideas along with the new web 2.0 technologies (social networks and community applications) to implement them.

From Harvard Business review. "MANAGEMENT 2.0"Some of the ideas might be near to you... Lots of good comments.

What Does the Future of Management Look Like to You?

"Social Networking Blurs Boundaries of Learning", from Chief Learning Officer

"Comparing Wal-Mart and Target on Facebook", from Emergence Marketing.

"Target has over 7,000 members and mostly positive comments in a vibrant set of discussions. The Wal-Mart group on the other hand has a little over 1,200 members, no discussions are allowed, and the wall postings are mostly negative."

Business managers need to take notice of the social web. With social software applications - social networking and community solutions combined with CRM, managers and employees can improve customer support and value while improving productivity.

Snagged this article and images from Selvas Cano, "Online Communities / Social Networking and CRM