SOCIAL NETWORKING sites like Orkut, Facebook and blogs are part of your personal life, right? Wrong. Lately, India Inc has begun to believe that such "social media" are vital office communication tools.The benefits? The emergence of a whole new democratic work culture. Take online marketing firm Webchutney.
Mustafa Syed, a marketing analyst and project manager, follows 40-odd colleagues on Twitter, a microblogging service accessible from cellphones and PCs, among other social networking tools to stay in touch with colleagues across three locations - some of whom he has never met. "Work flows smoother with such informal tools.
Everyone in the company is on G-chat as a rule, so there is no initial awkwardness communicating with people you have never met," Syed says. Employees often chat online with the CEO as well, taking up problems and discussing ideas.
And when Webchutney CEO Sidharth Rao recently went to Bangalore to make a customer pitch, he was microblogging about the presentation live to employees in Mumbai and Delhi. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is trying to leverage online social networking for collaborations and knowledge creation within its 110,000 employee-strong organisation.
"Social networking is hugely popular with a very significant employee base," says K. Ananth Krishnan, vice president and Chief Technology Officer.
Part of the "highly connected and open culture" at TCS is 'My Site' - a website for employees, embedded with social networking tools. Then there's Idea Storm - a site on which everybody is invited to comment on a theme.
"We got 20,000 ideas out of a dialogue in 5 days," says Krishnan. At Cognizant, newsletters and other internal communication systems have already migrated to the blogging platform.
Employee blogging is central to Sun Microsystems' marketing communications strategy. Top boss Jonathan Schwartz believes that blogs have "authenticated the Sun brand as much or more than a billion dollar ad campaign could have done.
(Courtesy:Yahoo!)
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