Businesses need to open up for social networking

Social networking will never fit into the business world unless enterprises adopt a more open attitude.

So claims Diane Bryant, chief information officer (CIO) at Intel, who admitted her own attempts to incorporate social networking had never reached a successful conclusion.

"The enterprise and social networking [are] so opposed," she said during a CIO panel at IDF 2010. "The enterprise is about secure and closed, social networking is about being open."

Bryant revealed Intel had worked on its own internal social network under the name "Planet Blue" and had even consulted Facebook for tips on how to do it. However, it just didn't live up to the tools already available to employees and it was a constant battle to "try to catch up with the employee expectation rate" of what social networks should be.

Walt Oswald, CIO of Motorola and also present on the panel, sympathised with Bryant's plight. He disclosed his company had been through similar trials and tribulations when trying to implement its own social networking tool.

Called PeopleNet, it never caught the imagination of the employees, so had very low participation. Motorola is planning to relaunch it and try again soon, but Oswald admitted the company saw more activity from employees when it came to external social networks rather than on the company's own offering.

"It is an interesting dilemma what you do in the enterprise space," he said. "I think you [shouldn't] try to put too much of an IT wrap around the [social network]. It is something we have done in the past.. and it is not what the people want."

Oswald said the fears IT had about the more open approach needed to be put to bed. "It is going to be a struggle for us but it is what we need to do."

Bryant agreed with him but concluded the change in attitude had to go even further.

"We still have this attitude [of a] fundamental separation between consumer and enterprise," she claimed. "We are all living in a blurred personal/professional world but our technologies are still separate."

She made the point that at Intel products were still separated into consumer and enterprise, yet the line between what we use at home and what we need in the office is starting to blur.

"All of us at home are trying to protect our PCs like in the enterprise. On the enterprise side we want the ease of use of the consumer side. These two worlds need to come together... and our lives will be much easier."