Strategies for Managing the Knowledge in Social

Networks

by Malcolm Ryder, Senior Software Architect, CA Technologies

Introduction

Enterprises increasingly rely on managing knowledge assets and knowledge

resources to optimize the relevance, quality, and impact of the work they

perform. Thanks to the web, these assets and resources are now found more

online than in any other location.

As a recent evolution of the web, social networking has profoundly impacted

how entire generations of people interact. These interactions have quickly

become an essential source of enormous volumes of knowledge. However, the

interactions and their results easily escape the supervision that establishes the

credibility, applicability, and actual sustained effectiveness of content provided

as knowledge. The management challenge is to make social networking

systemically produce high quality, high priority knowledge from its vast

capability to produce content and to convert the social network into a learning

enterprise.

Background

Before the current array of automated social networking techniques, the three

primary instruments for managing social collaboration were email, cultivated

knowledge-bases, and collaboration. Each instrument, in varying degrees and

techniques, captured and tagged content according to source, topic, and need,

with the option of re-use.

In handling the flow of information, the routine cycle of its discovery, validation,

categorization, and application relied on “information engineering” and that

engineering itself represented the level of business interest in prescribing what

should be known and communicated.

Social networking has introduced an "open source" or "crowd-sourced"

engineering of the information invested in the company's work. Social sources

readily extend beyond conventional boundaries of an enterprise, notably

including its reach, priorities, and budgets.

The natural dynamics of these social sources is often thought of as "self-

organizing," but for business effectiveness, the challenge is to strategically align

their dynamics with the objectives of the enterprise’s business workgroups,

whatever their diversity and size. Within that alignment, the dynamics must

convert content to the knowledge needed by the business.

Managing Social Information

The alignment of social networking’s dynamics poses three areas of management

focus:

• Scale (How much is enough, and where?)

• Training (Can roles and their enablement be defined?)

• Auditing (What action outcomes and timing should be tracked?)

About the author

Malcolm Ryder served as a Senior Software Architect with the

Solutions Engineering unit in the Enterprise Solutions and Technology Group at CA Technologies.

Since 2006, Malcolm has worked both directly with customers and internally with product management and CA Services to specify requirements and to strategically align and implement solution components and products in the CA portfolio of ITSM offerings. His recent focus has been in Service Portfolio Management and solution integrations architecture.

Prior to joining CA Technologies in solutions architecture, he co-designed multiple market-leading ITSM applications for various vendors as a product strategist or as an executive, in product management, customer services and operational performance. His prior experience also includes over 15 years in management consulting including marketing, asset management and IT Value

Management in both the public and

private sectors. He co-designed the

industry’s first Windows-based

commercial ITSM automation

Each of the three focus areas requires policy and technology underpinnings that

predispose the manageability of social networking.

Management concerns include the following:

• What is the business risk of a management failure?

• Should social networking replace older methods or enhance them?

• How should the company manage the relentless innovation of social

networking coming into the company from the outside?

Managed adoption and alignment subjects each of the key focus areas to all of

the following requirements:

• Policy

• Communicate the business priorities for communication and use of

knowledge.

• Articulate preferential support for using the various respective social

networking techniques accordingly.

• Incentivize adoption of policies through organizational change management

(self-organizing becomes selfmanaging).

• Technology

• Define and defend the "boundary" of the corporate social community

(communities).

• Equip community members with self-optimizing tools.

• Encourage innovative usages that strengthen alignment to policy.

Placing these requirements on the focus areas creates a framework for modeling

the initial management efforts. The modeling can point at existing management

efforts, and it can point out areas for new management effort. Therefore, no

single set of particular management efforts is “correct” for all organizations.

However, the following illustration is a management plan suggesting useful

touch-points that any organization should consider:

Planning the Flow of Social Information

Policy Scale Training Auditing

solution and later, at another

company, the first ITIL-certified

commercial ITSM automation

suite.

Communicate the business priorities for

communication and use of knowledge.

Workgroup size Roles and stakeholders Content usage

Articulate preferential support for using

the various respective social networking

techniques accordingly

Access privileges Demos Subscribers

Incentivize adoption of policies through

organizational change management

(self-organizing becomes self-

managing)

Projects Employee

recognition/status

Performance

Technology Scale Training Auditing

Planners must remember that coordinating across the touch points is the

approach required to gain sustainable effectiveness. This coordination creates

the circumstances for the social networking to generate value from its

information flows.

This article provides a survey of factors that underlie the challenges and

strategy for bringing social networking under the umbrella of business

knowledge management.

The Big Picture

The Origins and Value of Knowledge

Social networking raises the following key questions:

• Within the new type of information overload that it generates, how do we

efficiently and continuously exercise selectivity for serving the needs of the

business?

• How do we capture value from the supply of content?

“Value” is itself an idea that needs a precise practical definition. Value is

always generated from a distinction. The distinction presents a characteristic

that affects the reasoning behind making a choice: choosing or not choosing

Define and defend the "boundary" of the

corporate social community

(communities)

Support

Programs Programs

Equip community members with self-

optimizing tools

Services Service Procurement

Encourage innovative usages that

strengthen alignment to policy

Projects Evangelists Projects

the item that carries the distinction. If the distinction does not affect this

reasoning, it is typically not perceived as a “meaningful” difference. The idea

of value rests in the sense that a distinction is meaningful. Things become

meaningful because they are experienced in a given context. Where

knowledge is our objective, expertise is the most desirable manifestation of

experience. But all expertise is predicated on identifying a context.

This means that to capture value from the information supply, we must

understand how context works.

Context

Choice is fundamental to all practical notions of value. Context adds two

important ingredients to the reasoning behind choices:

• Comparative data

“Value” is itself an idea that

needs a precise practical

definition.

• Points of view

Comparative data presents potentially important alternatives to whatever is

offered. For example, the alternatives may be contradictory, extenuating, or

even amplifying. This additional data comes from experiences including

history, research, and coincidental exposure to other communications.

Typically, comparative data helps to establish perspective. The “perspective”

is the set of possible observations made available by a point of view, which is

a particular position from which an observation is made. Comparative data

helps to determine what point of view is most useful.

In turn, the point of view acts as a filter on the data that is used in reasoning.

As an analogy, think of a photograph as a set of processed information

generated from a fixed point of view. Choosing a type of lens, aiming it, and

focusing it create the context for the capture of information by the camera.

The resulting picture is contextualized information, which we experience as

the photographer’s choice.

Because context creates distinctions or differences, it can always generate

some value. In fact, context readily affects at least four important variables

that affect our sense of value:

• Expectations

• Decisions

• Actions

• Concepts

Any given context can simultaneously affect one or more of these four

variables. Even more interesting, and more complicated to sort out: these four

variables may serve as context for each other.

The abundance and complication of information is one of the main side

effects of the “organic” behavior of social networking, in which many

disparate variables are readily connected or superimposed, intentionally or

otherwise. Because of the resulting complexities, we call on experts to sort

through variables and rescue items that are needed or most desired.

Due to previous experience or

current needs, we designate

certain topics of information as

having more value or less value

by default. That is, “less

valuable” topics are ones that

have been experienced as not

being very meaningful to the

occasions and parties in action,

while more valuable topics have

been experienced as more

meaningful. A business point of

view dictates that some

information is more important

than others. The business

management of the information is

aimed at establishing perspectives

that promote and preserve

business expertise.

Subject matter expertise, as a

perspective, has the special

distinction of containing a

cumulative familiarity with the

full span of lesser and greater

value within a certain range of

topics. “Experts” can identify

what kind of value currently

exists (or should exist) in

association with any of the topics

within scope. Subject Matter

Experts (SMEs) have knowledge

but also a familiarity with the

contextual interrelationships that

surround the processing of a given topic’s information.

With social networking, this broad coverage and assessment capability,

which sorts through the complexity of the information supply, is often sought

in the “wisdom of the crowd.” However, confidence in the crowd presumes

that the The abundance and complication of information is one of the main

side effects of the “organic” behavior of social networking, in which many

disparate variables are readily connected or superimposed, intentionally or

otherwise.

crowd interactions, its dynamics that circulate and change information, are

managing the changes that occur and persist. For supervisory managers, this

raises questions about how crowds are forming and which changes are

prevailing.

Communication

The main force at work in change is communication. By driving

discovery, transmission, and interpretation of information, communication

modifies the existing combinations of contexts and information. This

presents a variety of scenarios to place under management. For example:

• What if new contexts are applied to older topics?

• How can new topics gain value in older contexts?

• Where do new topics and contexts materialize?

Ordinarily, the combining of contexts and information follows some regular

patterns of formation and dissolution. And, certain combinations are

promoted more than others. We know these “promotions” by various names.

Three of the most prominent modes of promoting the association of

information and contexts are:

• Logic

• Culture • Politics

Each of these three modes actively “markets” information of certain types in

certain ways.

Savvy management accommodates all three successfully; what is most

interesting now is that all three modes can be affected, potentially

dramatically, by social networks.

Content versus Knowledge

In social networking, the production and marketing of information generates

enormous quantities of content. Because of that content availability, we need

to reassess the definition of knowledge.

In a classical model, you have hierarchical development of an output called

knowledge:

• Data is related to each other and to a situation to form information.

• Information is related to some method of practice to form knowledge.

Usually, the close tie to methods then makes knowledge very marketable

within a sphere of operations called a “domain,” and subject matter experts

gather within and around the domain. Collectively, the gathered group

continually tries to use, improve, or dispose of knowledge that is in a

repository provided for the domain. Existing knowledge can acquire or lose

value, as well as gain or lose

holders. Meanwhile, new

knowledge may be drawn into the

repository.

Management looks at applying

some control to the repository of

identified knowledge. However,

because all knowledge is

malleable and perishable, the

more important arena of

management is production –

attending to the mechanism

chosen for creating and

promoting the relationships

between data and situations, and

the relationships between

information and practices. These

two mechanisms underpin the

process that concludes with

acceptance of

The main force at work in change

is communication.

Because all knowledge is malleable and perishable, the more important arena

of management is production

proposed knowledge by the target users.

Acceptance comes in different flavors. Proven mechanisms are oriented towards the following prominent types of

acceptance. The bond between information and practices (work) can be created and promoted by any of the three:

Organic or tribal

• Validates using cultural terms

• Relies on consensus

Institutional or technical

• Validates using policy terms

• Relies on mandates

Conventional or algorithmic

• Validates using formulas

• Relies on models

We want to see how these mechanisms matter with regards to expectations, decisions, actions, and concepts.

A simplified view of their interconnections shows interesting alignments across a “universe” of identified knowledge:

Organic or Tribal Institutional or

Conventional or

In that same view, we see a rough correspondence to three types of thinking:

• Habitual (organic or tribal)

• Practical (institutional or technical)

• Managerial (conventional or algorithmic)

This observation raises traditional management questions about what type of thinking we want, under what given

circumstances, and how we can assure that we get it.

Knowledge Validation and Change

To promote or enforce our desire to cultivate given ways of thinking, two aspects are involved:

• Knowledge validation

• Change management

We explicitly distinguish and apply modes of validation, because when there is no authoritative source of validation,

content proposed as knowledge is often just not accepted as being “knowledge.” Authoritative validation of

knowledge is the most overt indication of the intent to market practical knowledge. Because of its popularity, social

networking brings a new balance of power to the formation and marketing of knowledge. Social Thinking

Technical Algorithmic

Expectations Customs Standards Rules

Decisions Beliefs Methods Priorities

Actions Rituals Techniques Procedures

Concepts Stories Conditions Proofs

Concurrent with the rise of social networking, several catchy ideas about authoritative validation have achieved

notoriety under new names, as if they were spawned by social networking itself. Yet these ideas mainly reflect the

different basic

modes of acceptance previously charted in this article:

• “We are smarter than Me” (approximately tribal)

• “Communities of Interest” (approximately technical)

• “Viral” network effects (approximately algorithmic)

We have seen that social networking gives an individual an unprecedented

capacity to simultaneously leverage all three modes. However, it can also

exaggerate or confuse their differences:

• Within any mode of acceptance, the volume and repetition of certain

information can help stabilize adoption of a set of knowledge, but it can

also induce myopia. Repetition gives the appearance of prior acceptance,

suggesting that evaluation need not be redone. As a side effect,

alternatives may not be considered.

• Uninhibited circulation of information across the modes of acceptance

can broaden perspectives, but it can also foster contradictions and

ambiguous accountability that erodes the information’s credibility.

Information recipients may assume that without checking the sources,

whatever they are provided already has validity or that it cannot be valid,

making any conflicting information hard to interpret.

• Finally, since each mode represents a different type of thinking, the free

blending of their perspectives carries the risk of becoming irrational.

Imagine using mythical information as the basis of a logical argument to

enforce a policy.

Consequently, when exploiting social networking’s energy and openness,

businesses must be wary of unintended side effects.

For example, most educational and training programs presume a successful

progression from tribal knowledge (which may even be irrelevant and

counterproductive) to managerial knowledge (where compliance to goals and

objectivity is self-regulating). The progression can be initially more difficult

when you find more entrenchment in one of the types of knowledge than in

others, making knowledge holders of that type more resistant to change. An

unyielding perspective can block new data and information, preventing

important formation of new knowledge before its meaning can be

demonstrated.

On the other hand, social networking requires the business to manage

“openness” itself. To programmatically incorporate knowledge in a

population of its users and producers, authorized validation of knowledge

must be accompanied by authorized change of knowledge.

Knowledge Flows

Authoritative validation of

knowledge precedes serious

marketing of knowledge, but

communication is how knowledge

itself is formed. This means

communication is also the basis of

knowledge change.

Social networking offers and

displays communications that, to an

unprecedented degree, expose the

scale and speed of potential change.

Communications activity includes:

• Discovery (for example, search

and alert). Discovery includes

the appearance of new

knowledge and, increasingly, of

new producers and users.

Within any mode of acceptance, the

volume and repetition of certain

information can help stabilize

adoption of a set of knowledge, but

it can also induce myopia.

Social networking requires the business to manage “openness” itself.

• Transmission (for example, sharing). Transmission includes post-

validation knowledge sent to targeted users, but increasingly it includes

pre-validated knowledge sent to untargeted users.

• Interpretation (for example, application and re-purposing). Interpretation

includes anticipated and tracked contexts, but increasingly it includes

unexpected contexts that surface yet go untracked despite their ability to

exert influence.

As a result of social networking technologies being adopted, conventional

supervisory management presence is outgunned. Management is now far

exceeded by the amount of energy expended by a population on interactions

with each other and between the elements of communications.

“Open” social networks intentionally emphasize the visibility of this activity

among network users. As the effects and products of the interactions grow in

persistence or in volume, they begin to influence users’ expectations about

what is possible and what is valuable. This influence in turn encourages

changes in what is formed and provided. In somewhat Darwinian fashion, the

visible accumulation of results appears to be what is “naturally” supported in

the environment.

Managers need to do little to keep that going. However, much of that

interaction and influence risks becoming unpredictable or disengaged from

business priorities.

In such circumstances, to apply authority to emergent changes:

• The infrastructures of communications should be managed to overtly

support preferred communications methods and overtly discourage

others.

• Some knowledge should be actively sponsored and marketed to users; the

marketing should generate benefits for the recipients of the marketing

itself; recipients should realize that they obtain the benefits directly from

the knowledge sponsor.

• Managing demand for knowledge should leverage the energy already

being expended on knowledge discovery by directing it to well-organized

fulfillment services.

Infrastructure Knowledge Demand

Moves towards managing change

must not aim for making things

static or closed. The overall goal of

establishing this authoritative

presence is to create channels of

knowledge, not repositories of

knowledge. A change agent for

knowledge, fostering the channel,

will be the role that is recognized as

most authoritative of knowledge

changes. The responsibility that

comes with the authority is to carry

on a relationship with users. The

primary characteristic supporting

that authority is the knowledge

community’s confidence in the

As a result of social networking

technologies being adopted,

conventional supervisory

management presence is outgunned.

Support Marketing and

Sponsorship

Management and

Services

Discovery Search engines Projects End user Support

Transmission Applications Publishing Catalogs

Interpretation Knowledge

bases

Education Events

Moves towards managing change must not aim for making things static or

closed. The overall goal of establishing this authoritative presence is to

create channels of knowledge, not repositories of knowledge.

channel. A change agent may be a manager, an architect, an analyst, or another skilled person (or team) that can

establish, coordinate, and maintain the support, sponsorship, and services as a program that develops the channels.

Knowledge Channels

Traditionally, knowledge management has focused on how to standardize the population-wide distribution of

knowledge “assets” or knowledge “resources” conforming to some certain ontology. It has been accepted that SMEs

are human resources representing intellectual “capital,” and most of the responsibility has been given to SMEs to

collaborate with “knowledge engineers” and publishers to capture, store, and forward that capital. Publishing has been

the main paradigm of re-use.

Social networking changes the strategy. The new strategy uses discovery, transmission, and interpretation differently.

Common shared interpretations within a community are still a high priority, but the conventional transmission of

standardized knowledge is replaced by providing focused, on-demand access to discoverable resources that are already

distributed throughout the network. As a result, knowledge publishing is in some respects being supplanted by

knowledge mining, and the competencies for the mining are orchestrated into the process of providing channels.

Within the channel assembly, semantics, filtering, presentation, and indexing are vital mining techniques implemented

in systematic processing. Those techniques have parallel functions in the roles, assignments, products, and affiliations

of individual social networkers.

Channel Characteristics Social Network User Attributes Social Network Information Tools

Together, the users and information processing are accountable to managers as the sources of the networking outputs

that can be discovered, transmitted, and interpreted as knowledge.

Social networking complicates matters. Although an individual person may have a predesignated position within the

organization defined outside of the social network, within a social network, the person is far less predictably active on

(processing by people) (processing by systems)

Perspectives & standardized

meanings

Roles Semantics

Selections & situational relevance Assignments Filtering

Deliverables & usage formats Products Presentation

Relationships Affiliations Indexing

the basis of that presdesignation. One of the main attractive attributes of social networking – inclusiveness – is also

what makes the collective individual actions more likely to add, in unplanned ways, to the diversity of information

contributions and their uses within the network. Part of the purpose of the channel design is to promote preferences

held by managers, but to do so in a way that is not unnecessarily exclusive.

Channel Quality

Operationally, the goal for a knowledge “channel” derived from a social network is to replace the “library” and to

stand as a virtual SME. This includes a willingness to shift management perspective from asset management to

process management of how expertise is delivered.

A channel thrives on the continuing input and changes of its supply of packaged information or “content,” and for the

knowledge channel, this means that strong or high-speed vetting of the content is a critical success factor. The

formation of knowledge is powered by associating information and practices, and vetting analyzes the probability that

contributed information is meaningful in the context of a practice. Higher probabilities are taken to represent “better”

or more valuable knowledge.

Individual persons, including managers, agents, and consumers, can figure strongly in this scheme in two

ways: • Originating the information as a first source

• Orchestrating its valuable associations with practices by announcing, demonstrating, or proposing an

association In social networks, machines can also perform those tasks. Personal contributors of information are

accompanied by, but possibly competing with, other people and automated systems that affect what information is

provided as knowledge. Competition does not mean that the channel is not “open.” The primary goal of the analysis

in vetting is to develop business intelligence about the dynamics and content generated in the social network’s user

communities, so as to determine what to cultivate and what to handle differently. Patterns, trends, or even instances

of success can be weighed for their sustainability and repeatability. Emergent successes can include ontologies,

validations, and preferences derived from the contributed information. The findings can then be used to help

contributors direct their ongoing contributions to places where they are most likely to be found valuable. This

direction encourages the continued engagement of users.

Tracking the results of those activities in the population can confirm the business’s intended effects. It can also expose

unintended effects that prove to have just as much influence, good and bad. These findings help to manage, not just

observe, the evolution of the knowledge in real-time. In turn, that supports efforts to progress the knowledge from

tribal to managerial status, which equates with “learning” in the community.

Channeling knowledge is an approach that provides a scope, within which to set management expectations including

defining, planning, observing, and determining successes. In a social network environment, management matures from

awareness of the initial state to continuous improvement, as shown in the following illustration:

Social Information Processing for Business

The manageability of social networking

Business alignment

One of the most interesting characteristics of a social network, along with its energy and openness, is its innate

capacity to expand. We have seen that rapidly expanding social networks may also readily accommodate a significant

transformation of its user communities and their goals. However, by hosting a channel strategy for knowledge

production and use, social networking acquires a specified business responsibility, which raises concerns about

establishing reliance on the social network and its continuity:

• What methods should be used to manage the social network?

• Should social networking replace older methods or enhance them?

• How should the company manage the relentless innovation of social networking coming into the company from

the outside?

Given those issues, the requirements are to select sustainable operational techniques, including new or modified ones,

and to configure the network’s presence appropriately for the business responsibility. This effort should be framed by

three key issues: scale, training, and auditing:

Scale Training Auditing

Work Environment

Another important management view is of a channel as an environment. Said differently, a channel is a location of

events, such as presentations, and a location within which people can convene and interact. Social networks promote

the establishment of such places, and by offering users particular tools, they also establish the nature of activity that

occurs there. These proactive effects are planning factors in the adoption and adaptation of social networking as a

work environment.

An enterprise environment classically has three dimensions: people, processes, and technologies. Social networking

has challenges to overcome in each dimension.

People factors:

Failure to manage knowledge is less likely within small workgroups. Here, the threat of social networking is the

size of the at-large community that it may generate. The business does not really need a huge community; it really

needs a predictably right-sized community to engage on a timely basis. The social network can readily promote or

create an event for a targeted group.

Process factors:

Often, the single most expensive phenomenon in operations is the cost spent on consuming available time

effectively. Social behavior should be recruited and subscribed with the objective of productivity. Because social

networking generates a lot of momentum on its own, this may mean redesigning work procedures to leverage the most

probable behaviors that are fostered already by social networking. Technology factors:

Collaboration tools are the mainstay of socially oriented knowledge production. Where they succeed, it is more

because they provide a “commons” for shared visibility, support, and utility than because of improving interactions.

Social networks can alter people’s preferences of where they gather to interact. A business investment in achieving a

critical mass of adoption of a commons should be weighed in terms of existing commons and the effect of adding

new ones or migrating to them. Production Requirements

A final and equally important managerial view is the operational close-up on how content is created or provided in the

social channel. Social networking’s power is that it offers new ways of making things. Despite social networking’s

advantage of generating a vast diversity of content, the management goal is to convert data to information to

knowledge in the channel, in forms that the business can assign or predict. This group of assignable and predictable

Mitigate business risk

of failure

Conduct periodic

subjectoriented short-term

campaigns

Select a tolerated existing

constraint for solving with a

new approach

Assess results specifically for

lessons learned

Replace or enhance

legacy methods

Emphasize affordable means

of mining knowledge

Pilot certain focus areas of

knowledge to modify

Weigh actual demonstrated

capacity of new method to take

over legacy functions

Absorb social

networking innovations

Adhere to change agency,

and focus on widening the

knowledge scope with the

innovation, not on

networking

methods

Proactively guide people to

opportunities for using

innovations in a supervised

business task

Report on how new behaviors

relate to the incumbent

evaluations of performance

aspects emphasizes the most critical issue in knowledge management, which is the requirements to be met through

proactively producing content, instead of by reactively cataloging content supply. These requirements, all part of the

packaging of information, fall into three groups:

Sources (discoverable and identifiable)

• messaging

• searching

Responsibility (communicable and traceable)

• acceptance criteria

• timing

Credibility/validation (measurable and repeatable)

• certification

• correlation

The Manageability of Socially Developed Knowledge

Today's enterprise increasingly relies on managing its knowledge assets and knowledge resources to optimize the

relevance, quality, and impact of the work it performs. Because social networking enables users to dramatically

increase the supply of content, managing knowledge development is at the core of its subsequent manageability as a

resource.

These development issues extend across the matters of interpretation, transmission, and discovery.

Tools

Because so much of social networking is new and different in the enterprise,

it is challenging to understand how its rich array of features and functions

should be handled to optimize their possible benefits. For example, social

networking tools try to “front-end” most communications functionality, and

for users, this is exciting and convenient, which encourages usage to

originate and orchestrate information. For business purposes, much of what is

needed to follow up and understand that initial production of information can

run behind the scenes with better consistency and efficiency– no user

interface required. The reason to rely on the front end or the back end is to

improve the business’s work; simplifying or even reducing choices on the

user’s front end can have clear and measurable benefit by increasing

consistency and decreasing learning curves for production. For knowledge

management, automated systems behind the user interface then improve the

ability to leverage social networking behaviors for business.

Performance

Knowledge should affect certain characteristics of work in consistent ways

regardless of what work is being done:

• Relevance: aligning decisions to known priorities

• Quality: guiding effort away from real-time errors

• Impact: identifying the most important, as well as additional, contexts of

the work

Improving these characteristics improves the performance level of work, and

high-performance work fosters business value. Proactive use of knowledge is

the key to performance, but in knowledge management, a key problem is to

further determine what important things are not already parts of the

commonly accessed or validated knowledge being used. Communication is

the primary means of tackling that problem, which is where social

networking enters as a challenge and an aid. Social networking produces and

exposes a huge amount of this

additional material, which then

needs to be harnessed for

performance. In this networking,

social behaviors are the

communications driver that finds

information relevant to practices in

time for tasks, thus generating and

delivering knowledge. The range

and types of behaviors supported

will precondition how effectively

communications can enhance this

knowledge provision.

Harnessing diversity

In a social network, the default

condition is that knowledge

development is distributed whether

intended or not. Accepting this as a

starting point, management should

determine when to leverage the

condition proactively versus when to

reactively do so.

In proactive and reactive scenarios,

this diversity includes multiple

ways of communicating about the

same subject, as well as a wide

range of interest levels across

many different subjects. That

brings the technical challenge of

interpreting available

communications to categorize it by value. For knowledge capture, include

solicited and unsolicited communications. At point of capture, the key is to

identify the ways that information is used when offered and to evaluate the

impact those ways have on supporting business objectives. Since

communication occurs in many different locations, identification and

Because so much of social networking is new and different in the enterprise,

it is challenging to understand how its rich array of features and functions

should be handled to optimize their possible benefits.

At point of capture, the key is to identify the ways that information is used

when offered and to evaluate the impact those ways have on supporting

business objectives. evaluation are constrained by the ways that

communications are discovered. To

address this constraint, the enterprise

should adopt the following tactics:

• Encourage the communicators at

those locations to voluntarily

propose the knowledge value of

what they are saying and using.

• Host communications through a

central portal, where some

monitoring and prescribed

analysis has been activated

before the communication

occurs.

• Record the communications

occurring at various locations

and analyze them

retrospectively.

Social networking typically offers

all three of those tactics, but it is still

important to determine the propriety

and efficacy of each.

• Can communications and usage

descriptions be easily requested

and obtained in a standardized

way from disparate and less

controlled locations? What

about remote and non-business

locations, as well as local or

business locations? If responses

are not obtained predictably,

why would they be reliable?

• Does it make sense to focus on

unsolicited information in

centrally monitored locations?

What kind of value might be

obtained above and beyond the

prescribed communications

already in place without social

networking?

• With recorded communications,

what kind of analysis can cost-

effectively achieve a high

signal-to-noise ratio? Will it

encourage or discourage

communicators to remain

voluntary?

When considering different tactics

for different kinds of information,

answers to these questions become

the design basis for configuring social networking’s knowledge development.

They set management expectations about how selective communications can

provide information to be fed into enhancing the relevance, quality, or impact

of work. As such, they provide an important basis for planning cooperation.

Conclusion

Social networking is a relatively new force in the enterprise. Unlike many

business innovations, it is not one that the business originated and is

incrementally maturing. Instead, social networking is a naturally self-

directing mode of activity that, in a business, requires adoption and

adaptation. Its dynamics affect the way that information is produced and

discovered, thus affecting how the topical relevance of information to the

business is actually recognized and used. Its influence is more behavioral

than technical, which impacts how the information can be managed as

knowledge.

Social networking brings forces to work that can readily change the

conditions in which meaning is generated. Through enriched automated

communications, networked social behavior promotes rapid ad hoc exchange

of new information as well as broadened access to older information. As a

result, it creates new contexts of interpretation as well as inhabiting and

propagating existing ones. By fostering many new possible combinations of

information and context, the actual current range of types and usability of

knowledge is established and expanded. These include cases: • new

contexts are applied to older topics • new topics gain value in older

contexts

• new topics and contexts materialize.

When considering different tactics for different kinds of information, answers

to these questions become the design basis for configuring social

networking’s knowledge development.

The business needs to “get out in front of this” for social networking to be

productive instead of counterproductive. To give socially generated

information a practical place in required work, businesses must integrate

knowledge and operations. This integration means that social networking

should be planned, configured, and tested:

• Since social networking generates content on its own in many ways, the

business should select which aspects of social networking will be

advised, supported, and cultivated. The business should declare

objectives that provide a rationale for selecting different social

networking opportunities and effects.

• Selection involves detecting and prioritizing potential risks and benefits

from numerous perspectives. It does not make sense to make selections

that operationally are not sustainable by support or not attractive to users.

• Users need to be attracted to

working on business topics

while they are doing social

networking, and they need to be

rewarded for doing so.

• Piloting these decisions provides

the right chance of gaining

feedback as guidance for next

steps, and over time, the follow-

up adaptations of social

networking in the business will

more often than not come to

drive business progress forward.

While social networking will itself

continue to rapidly morph across

many technologies, the business can

take repeatable steps, such as those

previously surveyed, to establish a

stable framework of purposefulness.

This purposefulness then directs and

even predicts the ability of the

business to systematically adopt the

ongoing changes brought by social

networking, in a timely way.

NOTICES While social networking will itself

continue to rapidly morph across

many technologies, the business can

take repeatable steps to establish a

stable framework of purposefulness.

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