The Workplace Blog

Last week Susan Scrupski published some great comments about Microsoft’s efforts to orient MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007) towards Enterprise 2.0. She talked about Atlassian and Newsgator and how they integrate more tightly with SharePoint now allowing SharePoint users to find people and content more easily. It is also now easier to bring content into SharePoint and to take it out to other platforms and devices more simply.

And for those among us who are less inclined to go with SharePoint or for that matter any large company’s collaboration software, Susan recommends ThoughtFarmer which started out as a SharePoint project.

Above is a screenshot from ThoughtFarmer depicting an employee’s page.

I too met Chris McGrath at the Office 2.0 Conference and was very impressed with what his company is doing. Keep an eye on them.

I came across an HR perspective on Facebook in the Enterprise (PDF) via Web Stratetgy just now. Written for HR professionals, the article discusses how HR managers should approach the use of Facebook in the enterprise. I found this sentence which addresses improper Facebook user rather amusing -

A responsible way to handle this is for employers to negotiate a reasonable conduct policy with employee representatives, and make it clear to them what is expected of them in their private lives, both offline and online.

I don’t think a responsible way to handle improper Facebook usage is to negotiate a conduct policy with employee representatives. Rather, employees should be trusted to use Facebook appropriately. In the cases where there are misuses, those issues should be resolved in a private manner between a manager and his/her direct report. Don’t control unless there’s an absolute need to control.

If you want to learn more about Social Networks, read Danah Boyd’s primer which I’ve commented on at Going Social Now.