Twitter-like systems in corporate environments

I was thinking about the use of a twitter-like environment in a corporate setting that would allow users to send tweets that contained more „appropriate“ (at least in a corporate setting) content than those usually sent in Twitter. Users working on particular projects might keep their followers abreast of their activities (creating marketing proposal for customer x, working on CAD design for Ford Viper 10 air intake value, etc.). Those users who wish to comment could then send a tweet back with advice, comments, etc.

This is of course the goal of most corporate uses of social network technology. Managers know that there will probably be some degree of „personal“ traffic in such environments. Those tweets that are of a more collaborative character will be critical in efficiently using the knowledge and experience of its workforce. Once those individuals who grow up using this technology enters the workforce in greater force then such behavior/opportunities for collaboration will be acceptable and expected in corporate settings.

One critical issue will be the creation of the social networks in the corporate setting. Will individuals be allowed to create their own? Will the corporation add individuals with a certain profile (same division, same customer, etc.) to an employee‘s network in order to achieve the desired efficiency. This might be expected inasmuch as the huge number of potential followers in a global company will be unknown to the individual employee. I‘ve talked about one variation of „dynamic“ creation of social networks in a corporate setting in one of my SDN blogs. There are probably of variety of other options available depending on industry and corporate culture.