Social Business - The CIO's Guide to Oracle Products and Solutions - page 122

basic information about an employee as well as views of that individual,
such as who reports to them, who they report to, what organization they're
in, and what communities they are a part of. Employees can self-edit their
listing and even add a picture. Clicking on an entry allows someone to
send an instant message.
Perhaps the most powerful feature is social tagging, also called social
bookmarking . Clicking on an employee not only brings up identifying
data; it also brings up the employees tags, i.e., blog feeds, RSS feeds, com-
munities joined, social networks joined, recent forum entries, and wiki
participation. Ethan McCarty, who is former editor-in-chief of IBM's
intranet. describes it like this: “If you think of the phases of the intranet
and even Internet communication: First it's about access to information;
then it's about transacting with it—like e-business; and now it's more
about people” (personal communication).
The people we refer to as the millennials come into the workplace with cell
phone glued to their ear and fingers firmly glued to the keyboard, tweeting
and facebooking to friends and strangers alike. These folks think that talk-
ing on the phone is passé. Some don't even have landlines. These folks are
communicating via social networks, instant message, Twitter, and smart-
phones. However, it's their older brothers and sisters, Gen-Y, who are work-
ing to convince tech management of the value of these new technologies,
according to a Forrester Research (2009) survey of 2000 IT professionals.
This isn't all that surprising, as a 2010 Pew report found that Internet users
from all age groups increased their usage between 2008 and 2010. While
83 percent of those between 18 and 33 use social networking, those 45 and
older more than doubled their participation (Pew Research 2010).
Software Engineering Social Network
The development of software systems has long been considered to be a
social activity. Software is developed using a team model, where the work
is divided among the various team members. Various studies suggest that
on large projects, developers spend between 70 and 85 percent of their
time working with others. Thus, it is important that the team collaborate
effectively to achieve their common goal.
One of the earliest to research the psychology and sociology behind soft-
ware engineering was Gerald M. Weinberg in 1971. His seminal topic on
the psychology of programming was radical for its time. Aside from coining
the term egoless programming , Weinberg's book on microorganizational