Many businesses of different sizes and in all kinds of sectors have come to realize the potential of new forms of collaboration and have started to utilize Social Software Platforms for various purposes. Having described Social Software Platforms in my last post, I now want to try and summarize their main benefits for businesses along the two key words of this blog’s title: Connect and Collaborate.
1. CONNECT … with people and information

In other words, people not only get the chance to better connect with their colleagues around them, they also have the possibility to make valuable connections to more distant members of the organisation and even to external people. Moreover, these platforms offer access to the ‘wisdom of the crowds’, the collective knowledge pool of employees, customers, partners, communities, etc.

The possibility to connect with a variety of relevant people and information in this way can have strong learning effects for the organisation. People can benefit from existing experiences and don’t have to ‘reinvent the wheel’ each time they are facing a task. Further, they can collect immediate feedback and support on their work from a variety of sources such as colleagues, customers, or partners.
Such learning improves overall productivity, but it also improves innovation capabilities of the business. Companies can discover truly novel ideas for products and processes by connecting with distant and external sources of knowledge. Such an open innovation approach has proven very successful for many companies as more distant employees, customers, communities or business partners hold different knowledge and different perspectives. They are not restricted by past experiences, established routines and localized knowledge. Therefore, they can provide really innovative ideas and are often happy to do so.
2. COLLABORATE … with others effectively


A final benefit has to do with communication. Social Software Platforms allow businesses to move from single channel communication to an open dialogue. On the one hand this makes communication more efficient: messages such as tasks, strategies or visions can be spread broader but at the same time more directly, thereby avoiding misunderstandings and unintended implementation. On the other hand they give a voice to multiple stakeholders: employees but also customers and other external partners can provide direct feedback to new information and actively engage in a dialogue. It is now generally accepted that giving these stakeholders a voice (the possibility to contribute and comment on business affairs) strongly enhances their motivation, productivity, and general perceptions towards the organisation. In fact, such a dialogue is usually already happening in various online communities, blogs, and news-sites on the web. In many cases, these are already the places where products are rated, brands are hyped or smashed, and the most innovative ideas are discussed. Any company would be well advised to actively participate in these dialogues, to benefit from them and try to influence them in their favour.
The benefits for businesses in short:
- Finding relevant people and information for tasks
- Learning effects and enhanced productivity
- Improved innovation capabilities
- Effectively working together
- Synchronizing individual efforts
- Improved communication in form of an open dialogue
These benefits can materialize both internally, among employees, teams, functions or divisions of an organization, and externally, in collaboration with customers, business partners, communities and others. In both these spheres, I focus on three business areas, in which social software platforms can have a great impact:
- Day-to-day work
- Innovation
- Marketing & Customer Relations
I am planning to write more on the internal/external spheres of collaboration, the three business areas, and the benefits that can be achieved. I do think these can help to structure our thoughts when discussing these topics.