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SharePoint Social Computing—Business Collaboration

By Jon Harwokey

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Published: 27Aug2010
Word count: 503
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More and more, SharePoint social computing is being used by big global businesses to centralize content and increase collaboration between employees by allowing quick and easy access to targeted information and expertise. This 'socializing' of employees, ideas, and knowledge provides a new level of business collaboration, a step up from what a business just using a single purpose document sharing tool might currently be seeing.

Regular document sharing does provide a centralized place for documents to be stored, edited, and shared; and most often does this in a secure environment. But it still requires that employees understand exactly where to go and what to look for when they are searching for the most up to date information. Even with a centralized document sharing place, this can be a daunting task when you consider the fact that hundreds and thousands of employees from all different locations can be adding content to the same space at any given time. What do I do when I can't find the information I need to do my job in the very space it is supposed to be? SharePoint social computing can provide a very dynamic solution to this problem.

There are lots of cool things that can happen when you 'socialize' your document sharing center, all of which will fit right in with the established workflow that employees have already become accustomed to; and it will provide all the tricks while maintaining a high level of security for all intellectual property. SharePoint social computing equips employees with an incredible toolbox that truly takes the concept of business collaboration to a new level, allowing for effective sharing of ideas and expertise and timely, targeted communication among colleagues. Features of social computing include activity streaming, microblogging, mobile access, and streamlined knowledge sharing.

This collection of tools boosts overall business collaboration by allowing employees to stream for and stay up to date on targeted content and easily provide updates to colleagues and clients from their desk or from the road. It allows you to keep employees engaged in idea generation and decision making through interfaces that gather, evaluate, and prioritize emerging ideas from the workforce. Take that old school suggestion box!

SharePoint social computing gives employees, both new and old, the ability to have access to the most relevant information about the organization at their fingertips at all times. Experts can share what they know with those who need to know it. New employees can customize the content areas they most need to learn about and receive regular updates to get up to speed quickly and efficiently; and employees can easily keep tabs on the knowledgebase that exists within the workforce to make sure the right people are on the right projects and that they are collaborating in the most effective ways. SharePoint social computing will not necessarily guarantee that the work will get done, but your employees will be so connected, they absolutely will not be able hide from the information that they need to get the job done.

Jon Harwokey uses social software for business daily. Whether he is getting direction from a client or creating an entirely new product, the ability to communicate and brainstorm ideas with his team was challenging unless they were together. NewsGator, his social computing provider of choice, offers a secure platform that integrates with their existing software, making communication simple.

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