Even an old organization like ASME can look to the future. The ASME Strategic Issues, Opportunities, and Knowledge Committee has turned its sites to Professional Networking. The following article was posted in the September issue of Strategic Issues and Trends.
I have been posted it here with permission from Allian Pratt.
Professional Social Networking
Social networking may have started with friends gossiping in high
school and college on MySpace, but users are now turning to a more
personal type of business networking. Facebook and other general-purpose
social networking sites are creating business offshoots that enable
professionals and executives to rub virtual elbows with colleagues.
These are opening up the potential of social computing to change the way
we share our knowledge and collaborate with other knowledge workers in
our world, and beyond.
Unlike simple message boards that are open to all, these new
sites—including Sermo.com for doctors and Inmobile.org for the
wireless industry—have features such as profile pages showing
professional credentials; personal blogs; links to friends online;
electronic invitations to real or online events; and instant messaging.
Corporations are being nudged along by employees, and not just the
digital-savvy Generation Y that’s now entering the workforce. More and
more 30-plus employees are signing up with Facebook to trade daily
updates with colleagues and friends.
According to The New York Times, technology investors and entrepreneurs
are starting a series of new social networking sites aimed at baby
boomers and older computer users because they are seeking to capitalize
on what investors say may be a profitable characteristics of older
Internet users: they are less likely than youngsters to flit from one
trendy site to the next. They are also a big draw because not only do
the older users have a lot more money, they also pay a lot of attention
to advertisers.
Big companies look at the fast-growing social network scene as a place
to market their products, but many are also adopting the same technology
to create internal networks, giving their employees a way to connect
over the internet around the globe. By luring employees into a network,
companies hope to leverage their skills and contacts, and that all that
collaboration will cut out time that’s now spent mailing documents and
emailing comments. It turns out to be an efficient way to figure out
in-house expertise, discover new recruits, and share information within
their own walls.
Setting up corporate versions of a social network is not without its
challenges. Companies have to build in safeguards to make sure employees
comply with company policy. Executives worry about losing control of
information or opening up their networks to security breaches. Despite
these concerns, companies see a chance to harness the positive aspects
of social networking—especially where it opens a door to a new
demographic. As an example, BusinessWeek reports that Dow Chemical Co.,
facing a shrinking workforce as baby boomers start leaving the labor
market is pushing hard on hiring and retention. It plans to open
internal networks for women, retired workers, current employees and
alumni. Dow wants to keep in touch with the brainpower of
employees—past or current.
ASME Implications
Are ASME members using this technology to explore and discover new
spaces for relationships-building, learning and collaboration? They are
out there, using these tools, both in the workplace and at home. ASME
has a self-forming Facebook group with 1,100 members, which has doubled
in size in six months.
We hope to build on the success with our in-house communities of
practice by adding more tools to facilitate technical and social
collaboration among members and customers. With the launch of these new
tools to our Communities of Practice, we hope members will explore the
new media and be able to extend their working relationships with others.
After all, how can we say whether it is going to help us improve the way
we interact with other knowledge workers and customers, if we first do
not try the tools for ourselves and see if they would meet our needs or
not?
Professional social networking within ASME has the potential to enhance
the member experience, and would address the following strategic
objectives:
- C1 – Better serve our core customers
- C2 – Become an important resource to Early Career Engineers
- C5 – Identify and Address Future Markets and Applications
- I1 – Enable self-forming communities of interest
- I7 – Improve coordination and effectiveness of internal/external communications
Justin’s P.S. I joined Facebook after reading this article.
