Gartner Pushes Enterprise Social Network Integration
April 21, 2012
The regulators and project managers of certain government work will enjoy figuring out how the next big Gartner thing affects their day–to-day work.
Gartner has been quiet in the search sector. It is tough to make money in a space where open source and low cost or baked in solutions are widely available. But quite a few azure chip consultants have discovered social networks, which might be viewed as “search under a different name.”
Gartner’s blog expounds on “Search and the Enterprise Social Network.” There are some new buzzwords like “enterprise frictionless sharing” and some spice like “notifications,” but the message is that corporations have to figure out how to make social networks work for them.
Notifications do feature prominently in blogger Larry Cannell’s concerns. If an opportunity or problem arises regarding a client or project, interested parties can be automatically notified so they can take action quickly. Also, Cannell stresses the value of building a company knowledge base that integrates information from multiple applications. I think most will agree that these are meaningful issues which may support some fresh consulting revenues for the firm.
The write up follows the consultant’s middle path by stating:
“As multiple business applications become integrated with a social network site, a significant challenge will be the normalization of business entities across applications. For example, aligning a customer record in a CRM system with the same customer record in a warranty claims system. Without this alignment, cross-business application relationships cannot be captured within the site’s social graph and workers participating in the network will see duplicate customer profiles (one from the CRM system, the other from the warranty claims system).”
Yes, I can see how that could be a valuable tool. The article also points out some areas where for-fee expertise may be useful:
“Another important question regarding these types of integrations will be the role of security semantics managed by the originating business applications. Should the social network site enforce the same access control specified in the business application or should a different set of controls apply to this information? In other words, should revoking a worker’s view permission to a customer’s record automatically revoke this access to the entity’s shadowed social network profile? Replicating a single business application’s security semantics with the social network site may be difficult. A more daunting task will be normalizing security semantics across multiple business applications feeding the social network site.”
Yes, such security reconciliation could be a challenge, but it seems like a fundamental function. Again, this all comes down to the message that organizations must figure out how to make social networks work for them. The assumption is that social networks are here to stay.
Look, most “companies” are small, fewer than 50 employees. The big outfits can afford to experiment, though, if they desire. What we have here is solid azure chip output aimed at generating revenue.
We keep thinking about the interesting intersection of social networks and government contract requirements, regulatory requirements for compliance, and plain old trade secret common sense.
When it comes down to it, aren’t social networks little more than amplifications of traditional communication methods? Oh well, lashing the social hobby horse to search may be one way to keep senior management sufficiently nervous to seek outside wisdom. Gartner caters to large organizations in 85 countries and has been in business since 1979 which is longer than most of the companies offering expertise in social media, networks, and analytics.
Cynthia Murrell, April 21, 2012
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