Do social networking applications have ANY place in business?

We are pleased to announce our second guest blogger signing to the Being Smarter blog – from a CEO who’s company is all about helping businesses to become smarter. Aaron McCormack is the CEO BT Conferencing and will be joining us regularly with his thoughts on being smarter in business.
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So who gives a @$£%@ about the Tweeting and Blogging and Facebook updates of anyone, when we all have jobs to get done? I was much quicker to adopt social networking tools in my personal life. Although many Facebook friends are now professional contacts and it is hard to tell the difference nowadays.

Even Twitter (the “domain of twits” I used to say) has recently become an entertaining place for me (@aaronirish) following the updates from all the various riders in the Tour de France (#tdf)

But do these tools have any role to play in helping us, or anyone else, get our work done?

There is a view that companies enabling social networks for internal use will simply end up helping their people spend more hours gossiping and sharing pictures online, rather than helping people get things delivered.

I tend to agree.

Many of my colleagues disagree. They think that corporate social networking tools (those we know, and some that are yet to be invented) will be the way that people do business going forward. People point to the way that these tools help folks build stronger relationships, find the right resources, enhance knowledge management and gain wider perspectives. Books like the Wisdom of Crowds tell us that if we can find a way of sourcing everyone’s input in a group, then the group makes better decisions.

Because you are here reading this blog, you are more likely to believe that social networking tools are useful. But would you bet your own money on it?

Let us know what you think…

Aaron McCormack is CEO of BT conferencing http://www.conferencing.bt.com/ a division of BT Group plc, one of the world’s leading providers of telecommunications services. For over 20 years, BT Conferencing has specialised in the delivery of robust, reliable and innovative conferencing solutions – backed up by high quality service and support.