Acknowledgments xiii
About the Author xiv
Chapter 1 Social Computing on the Ascent 1
Reshaping the Way We Work 5
Integrating into Business Processes and Activities 8
Summary 9
Chapter 2 Sharing a Social Experience 11
Modeling Social Experiences 17
Different Experiences for a Complex World 21
Summary 23
Chapter 3 Leadership in Social Environments 25
Governance and Leadership Models 28
A Selection of Leadership Models 29
The Centralized Models 29
The Delegated Model. 32
The Representative Model 34
The Starfish Model 35
The Swarm Model 36
Choosing a Leadership Model 37
Leaders and Influencers 40
Summary 42
Chapter 4 Social Tasks: Collaborating on Ideas 45
The Structure of Social Tasks 46
Identifying Beneficiaries 47
Describing the Form of Aggregation 48
Building a Template for a Task 49
Different Models of Social Tasks 49
Idea Generation 50
Codevelopment 53
Finding People 58
Summary 60
Chapter 5 Social Tasks: Creating and Managing Information 61
Recommendations and Reviews 61
Reviews 62
Direct Social Recommendations 63
Derived Social Recommendations 65
Creating and Categorizing Information 66
Sharing Collections 67
Folksonomies and Social Tagging 68
Direct Social Content Creation 70
Derived Social Content Generation 71
Filtering Information 72
Social Q&A Systems 73
Summary 74
Chapter 6 Social Ecosystems and Domains 75
Grouping Instances 75
Grouping Tools 77
Grouping Audiences into Domains 78
Who in the Organization Should Run the Social Environment? 81
Summary 83
Chapter 7 Building a Social Culture 85
Defining a Culture for a Social Environment 86
Ideology and Values 87
Behavior and Rituals 88
Imagery 90
Storytelling 92
Culture and Maturity of Social Environments 93
The Cultural Impact of Social Architecture 94
How Social Experience Models Impact Culture 94
How Social Leadership Models Impact Culture 97
How Social Tasks Impact Cultural Values 99
Summary 99
Chapter 8 Engaging and Encouraging Members 101
Belonging and Commitment 101
Creating a Model for Identifying Commitment 103
Maturing over a Lifecycle 108
Programs to Grow or Encourage Your Social Group 112
Membership Reward Programs 112
Recruiting Evangelists and Advocates 114
Member Training and Mentoring Programs 116
Summary 117
Chapter 9 Community and Social Experience Management 119
The Value and Characteristics of a Community Manager 120
Personality Traits and Habits 125
Where Do Community Managers Fit in an Organization? 127
Community Manager Tasks and Responsibilities 129
Member and Relationship Development 129
Topic and Activity Development 132
Administrative Tasks 133
Communications and Promotion 135
Business Development 136
Summary 137
Chapter 10 Measuring Social Environments 139
What Can You Measure? 140
Dimensions of Measurement 143
Types of Metrics 144
Metrics and Social Experiences 147
Measurement Mechanisms and Methods 149
Quantitative Analytic Measurement Mechanisms 149
Qualitative Measurement through Surveys and Interviews 150
Summary 152
Chapter 11 Social Computing Value 153
Defining the Structure of a Social Environment 154
Choosing a Social Experience 154
Setting a Social Leadership Model 156
Defining a Social Task 157
Grouping Experiences and Identifying the Audience Domain 159
Cultural Forces Shaping Social Environments 160
Social Computing and Business Strategy 161
Index 163
Today, organizations increasingly expect their social computing applications and communities to create meaningful, measurable business value. That won’t happen by itself: it requires careful planning and active, intelligent management. In Social Networking for Business, Rawn Shah brings together business social computing patterns and best practices drawn from his extensive experience running online communities at IBM. He systematically covers all four key aspects of successful planning and management: people, place, purpose, and production. Drawing on many real-world examples, he identifies key success factors associated with launching online communities that meet their goals, and guides you through managing the crucial “micro-challenges” businesses face in keeping them vibrant. You’ll discover how to successfully architect social environments and experiences; build participation, trust and reputation; empower participants without creating anarchy; identify the right social functions for your communities; use social computing to collaborate and create valuable new information; build a social culture; staff online communities cost-effectively; avoid pitfalls that lead to failure; even measure social capital and link it to financial results. Whether you’re a social computing strategist or in-the-trenches manager, chances are you’ve been on your own, until now. This book gives you the expert guidance and support you need every step of the way.
Rawn Shah is best practices lead in the Social Software Enablement team in IBM Software Group, helping to bring the worldwide population of more than 350,000 IBMers closer together and to improve their productivity through social software. His job involves investigating the wide range of social computing technologies, collecting best practices, measuring the usage and behavior of social software as it impacts productivity, and advising on implementation, governance, and operations.
In his prior job as community program manager for IBM developerWorks, he led a team of operations and development staff covering the worldwide network of thousands of communities, blogs, wikis, and social computing environments supported by IBM. He also led the creation of the developerWorks spaces software tool, a multitenant system to allow individuals and teams to bring many social tools together into their own focused social environments.
An avid software gamer, he has been involved in the online gaming world since 1990, both as a player, a guild leader, and hosting massively multiplayer games. He has witnessed how these social environments have grown from underground curiosities to the billion-dollar businesses of today, with the nature of social grouping and collaboration evolving hand in hand with every new offering.
He has previously served as network administrator, systems programmer, Web project manager, entrepreneur, author, technology writer, and editor in different business environments: as a sole proprietor, in a small startup, and in a Fortune 50 company. He has contributed to six other books, the most recent being the category-leading Service Oriented Architecture Compass, which since has been translated into four languages. His nearly 300 article contributions to technical periodicals such as JavaWorld, LinuxWorld, CNN.com, SunWorld, Advanced Systems, and Windows NT World Japan, covered a wide range of topics from software development to network environments to consumer electronics.
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