"Social networking" in the office?

I posted this comment today in respose to an article at Redmond Channel Partner questioning the role of social networking within corporations.

"As business becomes more “open” and collaborative there is plenty of scope for business-class social networking.

Most large businesses suffer from too many “silos” with departments and business units isolated from each other, culturally and physically. If we then factor in the rise of outsourcing and home-working we end up with highly fragmented and distributed ‘virtual’ organisations and a desperate need to connect and focus people on corporate-wide programs and goals.

Social networks can play a part in this as they enable employees from several organisations in a value chain around the globe make contacts and develop relationships with those outside of their department and building, whether for work (knowledge and skills seeking, advise, projects, training etc) and non-work (work interests, sport, fund raising etc).

There is real scope to include social networking capabilities such as personal profile, presence, chat, search, links, questions etc that we see in LinkedIn and elsewhere in existing applications as well as stand alone offerings. Contrary to popular belief, corporate IT users suffer from a lack of effective tools to connect and engage colleagues in the ways that business nowadays demands and social networking can address that deficit and potential users will have no problems in adapting.

I am sure we are not the only Microsoft partner looking to embrace these capabilities though the only vendor I know in the UK with such an offering today is Trampoline (no interest to declare)."