Corporate Networking

Last night you got a LinkedIn update that your old college roommate now runs the western division of his company. One of your former coworkers is offering a really interesting seminar on eMail open rates. And that pesky recruiter FINALLY has an interesting opportunity.

You immediately think – I know way more about what's going on in the broader world than I do about my own company! What we need is a way to rapidly share news, engage team members in quicker rounds of updates, and get new thoughts disseminated.

We need LinkedIn, or Facebook, or Twitter, or... all of them.

But the public tools are, well, too public. The need for this type of interaction is apparent and more companies are expanding their existing interaction tools – eMail, Calendaring, Project Repositories – to encompass these needs.

I've just read about two tools that come at 'company social' from different vantage points.

Socialcast is basically an access-controlled version of Twitter, with many features that make it more of an enterprise tool. Brief thoughts can be shared, questions asked, and concepts bandied about. All of these are stored and categorized. Messages can also have files attached. Similar to Twitter, employees can follow groups, team mates, and other employees. Sold on an SaaS model, Socialcast is quite affordable to test and try.

Socialtext made it's name on wiki technology, but has expanded that platform to encompass most social tools such as messaging, blogs, networking and also a desktop interface. It's really broadly like a true Facebook platform for an organization. It's a much richer platform and significantly more expensive, but opens tremendous opportunities.

Check them out. Imagine the free flow of information...