It's not often that I write a post about the other side of social media – the tools, such as wikis and knowledge sharing networks – that sit behind corporate firewalls. This is, in part, because I tend to use consumer facing tools to do the same things, but also because I often prefer to expose a lot about what I'm doing to a wider audience because it gives me the opportunity to get feedback from a wider range of people with thoughts and experiences which might prove helpful. Enterprise tools and consumer facing social media can, of course, be complimentary.
I've no doubt that enterprise social tools do have their place, and having used a number of different systems for tracking time spent on projects, to triage post-launch site bugs, and keep track of commercial contacts and opportunities, I'm starting to actually like them. Well, if not like then at least understand their value.
I recently came across a presentation on slideshare that does a good job of explaining what enterprise social tools are all about. What I particularly like about it is the way that it draws analogies between one person's, Charlotte's, use of social tools in both her personal and professional lives.