Facebook, facebook, you should take a good look at Facebook. Everyone keeps saying this to me.

I don't want thousands of pre-pubescent buddies, I keep saying in response. I don't want to know what their favorite colors are, what  bands they listen to, or what's going on this weekend. Maybe I'm old. Maybe I  have grown-up friends on LinkedIn. If I want to do the social networking thing, I'll go there.

I'm telling you, look at Facebook, my friends persist. Facebook has opened a platform  for developers, your clients will be using it, you need to know all about it.

So, okay, I've agreed. And I've found out that Facebook does have corporate users and that a new term has been coined- enterprise social software. I've even discovered that two of my customers, whom I'm not allowed to name, are using it, but here's a clue:

 Facebook itself has in recent months been taking its own steps to encourage the use of its Web site for business purposes. Some of the larger networks on Facebook include those of Apple Inc., Morgan Stanley, PricewaterhouseCoopers UK, Deloitte, and the U.S. Marine Corps, suggesting that Facebook is more than just a procrastination tool for bored college kids.

-Source InfoToday

 

ECM vendors seem to be eager to speak Facebook as well. Alfresco has integrated with Facebook.

BUT will ECM vendors who are Microsoft-friendly do the same? I heard a presentation by Pfizer in which they said that their ECM services will use only two platforms, Documentum and Sharepoint. If they haven't already, won't Microsoft soon introduce something that competes with Facebook?

And, Google hasn't been sitting around. They've launched OpenSocial which is likely to spoil at least some of the fun for Facebook. Here's the scoop on that:

As first reported on TechCrunch, on Thursday this week Google will unveil details on the initiative along with their launch partners. On the social network side they will be joined by sites supporting the API including Salesforce, Friendster, hi5, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Newsgator and Ning (with Google's own Orkut included as well). On the application developer side they will be joined by some of the leading Facebook developers including Flikster, Rock You, Slide, and iLike.

It is interesting that this is not a social network but a compatibility layer across networks. This has the potential to make developers lives easier while at the same time giving Google and Facebook's competitors a means to dent Facebook's current momentum.

Now, while it's dangerous for vendors to watch and wait, it's also dangerous for companies to adopt without too much forethought. Social Computing can run wild. At Pfizer, for example, a few employees posted lists of favorite CD's on their Sharepoint project pages. No harm done, but it does make a change agent's job a wee bit tougher. (How many CTO's will be proud of what the latest initiative has enabled?)

And while doing Facebook research, I found a lonely lady on a Morgan Stanley Facebook page demanding to know what was going on this weekend. Now there's a great investment in technology! (and should I really have ben able to access a Morgan Stanley Facebook page?)

Perhaps the best argument I've heard for Social Computing is based on demographics. The next generation of workers will have grown up online. That's why twenty-eight year old Adam Carson  is gaining ground as he walks the halls of Morgan Stanley preaching the Web 2.0 gospel.

The argument for Social Computing on an enterprise level comes down to this:

either the next generation of workers will learn an old way or an older generation of workers will learn a new way.

I'm all for the new way, especially if you're the one using it. You can text me if there's something you must tell me and it just can't wait, or if you touch/feel/hear/see/discover/read/taste something really, really interesting. I'll probably be running too fast to text you back, unless it's important, that is. (and truth be told, then I'll be more likely to pick up the phone.)

There's just one other problem (other than which Social Computing platform will collaborate with which ECM platform). What are the laws around social computing? Will the fact that a lady at Morgan Stanley wanted to know what's going on this weekend be archived? Will things that are said in jest or frustration be read out of context and taken seriously? Should the  iGeneration or eGeneration , whatever it will be called,  go to law school before they use Web 2.0 tools in the workplace?