The Social Enterprise

Since September, I've been experimenting with a new blogging focus on The Industry Standard. The blog is called "The Social Enterprise," and it's all about how companies and large organizations are dealing with technologies relating to collaboration, communication, and community. It's a rich topic area that lets me talk about the various networked technologies that are transforming the workplace, from Google Apps to Second Life.

Naturally, there is also a big focus on social networks. For instance, this week I had a chance to write about Salesforce.com's new "Chatter" tool. Here's an excerpt:

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it probably is a duck. That is, unless you're Salesforce.com, and you're talking about its new Chatter application. While observers have looked at features like profiles, status updates, Twitter and Facebook integration as proof that Chatter is an enterprise-grade social network, the company and its executives are taking pains to call it something else -- a "social platform," or, as carefully noted by Salesforce CEO and co-founder Marc Benioff, a collaboration tool …

"The Social Enterprise" has also led to some opportunities to share my thoughts on other sites and Twitter, and take part in a panel discussion on enterprise social technologies at a Bentley University entrepreneurship class a few days ago.

But my Industry Standard blog is my main outlet. Here are some posts which illustrate the kinds of topics and technologies I'm writing about:

• Real-time search and Twitter: What's in it for corporate America?
  
• The write-once, run-anywhere dream fades as languages and platforms proliferate 
• Microsoft vs. Google: When it comes to the cloud, it's war  
• Amazon Relational Database Service hits the cloud, but users wonder what will happen to SimpleDB   
• Outside the U.S., alternate social networks grow under Facebook's shadow
• Abandoned sims in Second Life: Don't forget to turn out the lights 
• Social networking in hospitals: A nuisance and liability, or "important adjunct" to traditional communication? 
• Readers respond: Apple Inc. and the "unpleasant odor" of social media  
• A lesson from the Sidekick's cloud failure: Personal phones are used for work