Write Technology

All this travel is keeping me from a lot of original content. Here is my latest post from bub.blicio.us, which I think you’ll enjoy.

I follow Laura Fitton on
Twitter and am usually either enlightened or entertained by her tweets.
Her company, Pistachio Consulting, has released a paper and a
comparison matrix on microblogging (or microsharing) tools used in
corporations: Enterprise Microsharing Tools Comparison: Nineteen Applications to Revolutionize Employee Effectiveness.
According the paper, there has been an uptick in this sort of corporate
communication as the economy has a downturn and corporations cut back
on travel costs.

Concurrently, employees see the collaboration,
networking, problem-solving and other productivity benefits of web 2.0
tools and want to apply them at work. These tools directly contribute
to knowledge capture and management as workforces are scaled back and
baby boomers retire, and they boost motivation and retention,
especially among millennial generation employees.

CIO magazine’s October survey of 243 IT executives found
three-quarters plan to freeze or cut their IT budgets. There is a
critical need for cheaper, more versatile ways for information to flow
within the enterprise. Enterprise-grade versions of Twitter may be the
low-cost solution that fills this need.

By researching 19 microsharing tools and their uses, the team came
up with several key findings, including that your employees are
probably already using some sort of microsharing tool and that these
tools should also communicate with the “gold standard” of Twitter. The
report goes on to define, and classify, these 19 different tools,
listing advantages and disadvantages of each. Finally, they list the
questions they asked users of these tools.

I’ll be referencing this paper in a presentation I’m giving on
microblogging in education. As a big proponent of informal learning, I
think microblogging helps inspire others to share and learn.
“Watercooler learning” is evident in Twitter, and Laura touches,
unintentionally perhaps, on these learning and training concepts.

Microsharing for organizational communication and
collaboration fundamentally changes how employees interact with others
and grow their professional capacity. Microsharing connects people in
ways that promote mutual support, rapid networking, inspiration,
mentoring and idea exchange.

This is incredibly useful for anyone looking to add a Twitter-like
tool to their arsenal of internal corporate communications. As is
pointed out in the paper, there aren’t any case studies yet, as usage
is still too new.

You can download the paper and/or matrix free from Pistachio Consulting.

One Response so far | Have Your Say!

1. 

   Collin Kromke
   November 6th, 2008 at 9:20 am #

   Great information! Thanks for sharing. This will come in VERY handy.