Social Business - The CIO's Guide to Oracle Products and Solutions - page 120

TABLE 4.2 (CONTINUED)
Success/Failure Factors
Factors related to the environment Competitors

Political environment
Economic environment
Social environment
Technological environment
Nature
Client
Subcontractors

Social Network

Social networking is a hot topic. More than 30 billion pieces of content are
shared on Facebook each month, and Nielsen researchers say that con-
sumers spend more than five and a half hours on social networking sites
per day. So I am sure it doesn't come as a surprise that social networking
has made its way into the workplace.
An AT&T study—based on 2,500 people surveyed in five countries—
found that the use of social networking tools has led to an increase in
efficiency. According to the study, 65 percent said that use of these tools
has made them or their colleagues more efficient, and 46 percent insisted
that it has sparked ideas and creativity.
Deep Nishar is vice president of products and user experience at
LinkedIn. He is in charge of a group of data researchers that look at every-
thing from data center behavior to trends in search and mobile com-
munications. His eclectic staff have experience in such fields as brain
surgery, computer science, meteorology, and poetry. According to Nishar,
machine-based systems like Google can't keep up with organizing the data
they are capturing. Interesting and important problems will be solved by
looking at social networks (Hardy 2010).
In 1976, sci-fi author Richard Dawkins coined the term meme , which
is an idea that moves from person to person and onward. With social
networking tools, staff can check to see what ideas people are discuss-
ing within the organization. Some refer to these sorts of tools as a “meme
broadcast tool.” Where marketers have Twitter to communicate with peo-
ple outside the company, businesspeople can use services such as Yammer
(yammer.com) to share information within the company, discuss relevant