Companies such communities: increasing productivity through true collaboration! When it comes to increasing productivity (individual and group) have to admit that productivity increased steadily in recent decades, but despite all that companies seem to have achieved improved its financial position nor its employees. Indeed this is the issue of productivity have been so many years, in spite of that evolution and the enormous technological leaps, the processes themselves have not evolved much as expected, has not evolved as the "traditional way of doing things." Fact that indeed the despair of the world, involved
a logic of increased competitiveness not matched by productivity factor.
required to have a significant performance improvement will be required to adopt a logic of exchange and innovation within the social ecosystem, making it possible that people can improve their own performance through a creative problem solving in dynamic processes that involve the ability to connect between their peers, both inside and outside of the organization ; Others Contrary to the practice of the previous century, when it defined the hierarchy, a whole new dynamic of competition requires that all processes are driven by people directly, with the speed at which businesses thrive and thereby determine . Decisions have to be fast and how fast moving to new and highly globalized world economy.
The world is experiencing a process of disruptive change and attend to a wave of transformation that began with the movement of open-source
and threatens to extend to the whole society and human activities. Any ideas developed openly has the active contribution of large communities, leading people to participate increasingly in
inovaçãoea processes create value. The democratization of inovaçãoea accelerated sharing of knowledge is an open, dynamic and viral, that is determining its own new way of doing science, research, learning, etc..
And here's where
social networks and platforms
social web software such as blogs, wikis and primarily organized around online communities can make companies, and societies in general more productive and effective. I therefore conclude that the future will depend on collaboration in the future entirely on what might be termed the social
productivity - getting things done through social networking ad hoc, rather than relying only on individual progress or in collaboration a working group, which is always much more restricted.
The social productivity will grow exponentially and virally , especially as people and services join the revolution that is already underway. And the "magic" of membership, which initially appears complex and difficult to achieve, is to transform people and passive people, actors in a community that identifies with the way they see the world and that gives you an immersive and active participation in business processes and company or organization to which they belong. Imagine even your customers to participate and contribute ideas and opinions about new products and services, as well as on new ways of doing things? Here, I quote Albert Einstein who said "Love is a better teacher than duty.".
For added benefits that have this kind of ad hoc cooperation, going beyond the organizational boundaries? Maybe for ambiguous and uncertain projects and tasks in the next steps and targets may not are at all obvious - designing an innovative product or solve a customer problem, especially prickly, for example. Such projects require conversations with people outside of normal working groups, bursts of insight, "feedback" and creative problem solving, rather than discussions with current teammates, the static knowledge, and pre-defined processes.
Using features such as discussion forums, blogs, wikis and document management, a social network joins staff companies and their work processes with customers, prospects , suppliers, employees, freelancers and third parties.
In the process of socialization, a social network is established. The Social Computing is therefore essentially a way to encode and explore the relationships between people and agents are divided into social spaces with crowds, communities, coun tries, markets, etc..
A very important aspect of these services provided by social networking platforms, which can not be ignored however, is how allowing people to connect with others, building a network of friends and acquaintances. Many of these connections may even work for other companies that are potential or existing customers, and this friendship developer could potentially result in a Dial-Up business opportunity. For many years, executives have used the golf course as his base of social networks 
. Now they can use social networks for this task to concentrate on your game, when play golf!
applications of social computing are now focused on the web with support for online communities, including social networks, wikis, blogs and virtual worlds , providing feedback comment on the social interactive entertainment, scientific, medical and business services, etc.. This also support forecasting techniques and collective decision making, using the combined power of groups and communities to solve difficult problems, as those associated with major disasters and conflicts. Moreover, they are increasingly applied to help analyze how changing technologies and policies can change the political behavior, social and cultural.
No doubt social networking, social bookmarking, forums, blogs, wikis, video sharing and microblogging is the new paths to productivity in businesses, schools and all other ways that human activity takes.
Demonstrate the benefits of social productivity in a way that makes sense for companies to adapt to the demands of the IT market and measurable ways with return on investment, are perhaps difficult to show when it comes to encouraging inovaçãoe solution ; will ambiguous problems instead of their effectiveness in improving individual processes or working group and at less cost.
As mentioned above, social networks or social software is totally focused on empowering conversaçãoea exchange of ideas. Collaborative networks groups are focused on access and organize data in formats of varying capabilities that allow decision-colaboraçãoe the reuse of information or knowledge. Collaborative networks will increasingly be critically important for companies and organizations, helping to establish a culture of operational excellence inovaçãoe materializing.
Also according to market analyst Gartner, points out in this study released last Tuesday (27/10/2009) that in 2013, 80% of the platforms of cooperation of the techniques adopted will be inspired by social networking sites and blogs today (see Article
). Also according to this market analyst information systems, also by 2013, over 80% of companies will share information as standard on the Web, through mechanisms and social Web sites (see
predict IDC).
The Future Many organizations have been in recent years to adopt Web 2.0 tools to encourage inovaçãoea productivity. And some estãoa begin to embrace social networking as a more effective marketing services and monitoring the behavior of their customers. Moreover, the collaborative networks in the enterprise, today are already as indispensable as e-mail or telephone.
But the application of social computing to improve the quality of decision making, optimization processes and forecast scenarios are not yet on the horizon for businesses, but will certainly be the next steps towards adaptaçãoe survivability of firms in a market globalized and increasingly competitive.
The business is not separated from social change. In the future, social computing is an integral and essential component of strategic and operational management of the company's future, while also turning the Web into a platform truly global, collaborative and social, taking advantage of collective intelligence
the planetary level.
a not too distant future (2-5 years) the
3D virtual worlds, games and simulations will also be part of the panoply of interaction es, a company incorporated in the network and will enable social and business networks of the future that will feature highly immersive and further facilitate the socialization regardless of physical location of each person in a given time. More
, are even the social networks
the glue that will determine which technologies will be adopted at all times, depending on the evolutionary point where humanity is found!
The Author: Francisco Gonçalves / IT Architect @ Softelabs & @ @ twitter
email
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article Dawn M. Foster. Dawn has over 13 years experience in business and technology with expertise in strategic planning, management, community building, community management, source software open, market research, social media and RSS. She has experience construction of new communities, management of existing communities and provide advice and assistance to companies with a particular emphasis on the development of open source communities.
By Dawn M. Foster: Companies like Communities - productivity through collaboration. When most people, especially managers, thinking about online communities, then the associated external communities of random groups, sometimes of people who interact around some common interest. Although many online communities fit this category, I have seen a growing number of companies that build communities estãoa workers within their organizations to improve colaboraçãoe significant improvements in productivity. I myself am lucky to have worked in organizations that felt more like a community than a company and in which collaboration was a priority and goal to achieve.
Jitendra Kavathekar talked about this idea into recent post on Business Agility as a way to ROI. He says that collaboration is the essential ingredient for doing things in business today. "Collaboration is one of the key functions of any community, but communities are more than just a place for people to collaborate. In general, large communities bring people together to form a shared identity and cohesion among members. Many companies struggle with ways of getting all your employees can work together as a cohesive group, but increasingly oriented to the community is a great way for employees are driven to become more involved and feel like they are actually part of the corporate identity and not just a cog in the great wheel. Let me give some examples that demonstrate some of the benefits of treating the company as a community.
Collaboration on documents and other information .
In an office environment are all in a situation where several people are in some way to edit a document and send it by e-mail, and always with a high probability losing versions of edits made by the replacement of documents after editing; such, usually translates into a chaos of document management in general. Have a better way so that employees can work on documents is an obvious benefit of community approach that can be easily demonstrated by the time savings and quality improvements resulting aggregate. However, we can take this approach to give the community a step further. Suppose you have three people editing a document containing a proposal for a new business of his company, which is trying to win. What happens when these three people are editing a document that is visible in the community for others to see? You now have a mechanism for additional feedback, ideas and suggestions from people who might never have thought to ask about the proposal. You can even find someone in the process that has a deep knowledge of business and which can offer insights about the company, which otherwise would sisdo unknown. Now, that does not mean that all company documents will be available to everyone. The solutions you choose for your platform for collaboration in the community must have a robust privacy, where you can obtain sensitive documents and control who can see or edit those documents in particular for each project or process.
Better decisions .
Another benefit of a community approach is in the process of decision. I once worked at a company where important decisions were discussed in our online community before implement more changes. These decisions of product strategy can be obtained from functions feedback and ideas from other company employees, who otherwise would not be obtained and be lost forever. Although it certainly can not (and should not) open all decisions to a vote and suggestions of your organization, you can start by asking people their opinions and discuss the merits of various options for which previously decided open to wider discussion. IF act this way because I think that will surprise you with the knowledge gained in places within your organization.
Get Answers.
Every day we encounter something unknown to us. I can try to find the answer on Google or post my question to Twitter, but as if these issues are specific to my organization? In most cases, any other employee, you probably know the answer to your question and can quickly provide you with an answer. I saw this model be used for issues ranging from where to find some piece of documentation (human resource policies, legal documents, etc.) to questions about a newly transferred employee and need some recommendations for a good medical plan that is covered by the insurance company, for example. These issues and ad hoc responses (Q & A) among employees to the diffusion of knowledge are highly compensating for the organization in terms of productivity, but also allow consolidate and solidify the team spirit among employees, simultaneously feeding silos of know-how and functional organization, at no additional cost to the company.
Putting your company to behave as a community can be a great organizational change, particularly in certain types of businesses that must deal with organizational knowledge more intensively, but the benefits can be truly amazing.
12/10/2009 the development of open source communities.
Dawn has an MBA from Ashland University and a bachelor's degree in computer science from Kent State University. It uses a combination of technical and business knowledge and education to help companies get real business value of participating in online communities. Dawn regularly blogs about online communities as the author of Fast Wonder Blog
, blogs
GigaOM WebWorkerDaily's . It is the book's author, Companies and Communities: Participating without being despised . Dawn is currently providing consulting services to Twiki, Inc.
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Elgg - an open software platform for enterprise-level social networks
For Business implement collaboration-based communities, restricted to the intranet in a secure and flexible, there are many platforms software that adopt this philosophy of collaboration in communities such as described above. therefore conclude that the solution in open-source of
Elgg is one of the most appropriate tools to implement collaboration in the enterprise network in a safe and easy . As such it follows a brief description of it: Elgg.Org
even sports like rugby
. There are extensive range internet communities that result from implementation of the elgg open source platform, such as community live out there, you can visit.
If demand application software to create your own social network or even an official website for your organization , Elgg is a good choice, since it provides the basic building blocks that will need.
In addition to a mechanism "core" robust and extensible, there is a collection of resources you can use, and that is referenced below:
Activity
Activity A stream of useful activity, which provides a look-a-glance on the activity around the site, and the activity of your friends and your own actions. can filter the flow of activities to include only specific tools or types of action, making this a powerful addition to your social network. Optionally, the flow of activities can be the first port of call for users logging into the site - or you can use it alongside Elgg widget-based dashboard. Users will be presented with new members of the site and power sent directly to the wire . |  |
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Profile Elgg comes with a standard set of fields that profile may be extended or completely changed by the site administrator. Using the widget framework Elgg powerful, users can select from a database of available widgets to create a complete profile and wealthy.  Elgg assembles a profile as a grand vision of a member of the site, bringing its activity from the site, as well as external sources.
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Notifications You can track what your friends are doing through the method of notification ; will of your choice. Choose which activity you want to enroll, and have it delivered using the method of service of your choice. E-mail and domestic support are outside the box, and other methods can be added via plugins. |  |
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Groups Users can create groups around a specific theme and take advantage of an area of collaboration group discussion, group of files and pages in the group. You can create open groups that everyone can participate, and closed groups, where the membership request is made first, and accepted or denied by the group owner. |  |
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Blog A simple blogging tool with some helpful resources: Saving a project (with autosave) Categories - Switch Preview conversations
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- Incorporation of rich media content (see below)
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Embed files The feature enables users to insert files easily include your photos, audio clips and files within posts, pages , comments, topic discussãoe profile fields. The modal window allows users to upload resources and gain access to the files they need, while one build its content. |  |
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Archives Elgg comes with a full file repository that will handle a wide variety of data, including photos, Word documents, files will ; audio, videos, PDFs and more. You can easily flip between lists of files and imagery in order to comfortably find the item you are looking for. Users can view your latest files in your profile, and - using the media embed tool - enter any file on its contents.
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Microblogging The plugin adds support for microblogging Elgg - like having your own personal service Twitter. can send messages outside the intranet to Twitter so that their users can be notified and report enjoying your Twitter account - or you can implement this only on your intranet in order to allow their employees to remain just updated with the current status of his colleagues within the company.
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Pages
The plugin allows you to save pages and storing hierarchically organized pages of text, and control who can read and write to them. This means you can create a set of collaborative documents with a loose collection of people, participate in a writing process with a formal group, or simply use the functionality to write a document that only you can see, and only choose to share it once it is made
External Pages External links is a simple way for site administrators to fill the About, Terms and Condition ; s Privacy Policy and pages to your site Elgg powered. If used with the plugin index usual, you can add content to a FrontPage manageable
WYSIWYG content editor
.
Dashboard
Elgg comes with a flexible user panel, which can be replaced by the vision of activity, if necessary. The panel works as a personal portal site user, displaying information - both from the site and external sources - to select.
Elgg gives users a simple tool for social bookmarking. Using a button that users can place on your toolbar in Firefox browser, it's easy to tag and share resources across the web or just Intranet. Incorporating the same way a button on Google Translate, are automatically available translations of the website or intranet, to / from Portuguese, as to any other language on the planet (see Google Translations
The site administrator can define categories on the site. These categories are then available for users to use when creating a new blog post, uploading files or building pages. A great way to provide a flexible and simple categorization of themes and / or content.
Elgg always had a strong base, granular access controls for users. Elgg Ver.1.5 for two new additions. Users can restrict what your content is read by people who mark him as a friend or for any tool on the site. Also introduced is defined as default user (provided the administrators allow users to define a) that will apply to all of its contents.
Elgg Each site can take advantage of RSS
granular
FOAF, an extensible RESTful API results in JSON, serialized PHP, or XML, display es alternatives on a site that allows you to easily create rich applications for mobile phones and powerful events, plugin and widget APIs .
Francisco Gonçalves
/ IT Architect (Oct 2009).
our motto "KEEP IT SIMPLE"! Just Do It Better!
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