There are many reasons social networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook are exploding in popularity. One of the primary draws to these sites is their ability to provide a visual representation of connections with friends, family and business contacts. These sites are also a one-stop-shop for maintaining and forming relationships with friends-of-friends, or other individuals for personal or professional reasons. People, business executives in particular, are starting to see the value in understanding their social networks and leveraging the resources of previously unknown connections.
The Social Network Within
Within the enterprise there also exists an informal social network that is automatically created by employees as they communicate during the normal course of business. The ability to visualize the informal social network in an enterprise creates a new and valuable view into how the enterprise really operates. For instance, who are the "go-to" people and informal thought leaders in an organization? Where are collaborative teams located and how are they formed? Which employee/s might serve as a hub or linchpin between different departments? Where are the bottlenecks in communication? The ability to quantify and document the effects of business process changes, a piece largely missing in today’s deployments, is critical to achieving the greatest possible return on those significant investments. Discovering exactly how staff members are connected to each other internally and to outside resources can provide C-level executives with valuable insight into how their business really works, independent of the organization chart, ultimately improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire organization.
Using the Network to Find the Social Network
Today, businesses rely on network-based applications for communications and information systems to run their enterprise. Converged networks have made it possible for organizations to access information regarding their employees’ e-mail, instant message, web site, and online application usage. Each of these actions can now be mapped to reveal the social network within an organization—quantifying information that is normally only gained anecdotally. Mapping the social network within an enterprise directly from the network establishes true communication patterns across departments without bias. All contacts from the network are identified along with levels of frequency, enabling an illustration of the true relationships between individuals.
Organization Network Analysis
This network activity can be leveraged to open up a new world of real-time business information through organizational network analysis (ONA). ONA is the visual representation of nodes, which are generally individuals or groups. The closer the proximity of nodes indicates a greater volume and frequency of contact between them. Research has shown that social networks operate on many levels and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals. For example, if a single person connects two groups, you can take steps to create additional connections to eliminate bottlenecks and reduce the risk of operational disruption. Organizations use ONA to identify departmental silos, key connectors, and thought leaders among their staff.This insight enables them to improve efficiency and reduce risk.
Millions of dollars are regularly spent on business intelligence deployments, business process reengineering efforts, and other initiatives to improve operational efficiencies and effectiveness. By utilizing ONA technologies available today, executives can not only locate departments with effective or challenged communication, but can also conduct differential analysis for change management and the identification and replication of successful communication patterns. There are vast applications of this knowledge and each enterprise that has deployed ONA on its network has found unique ways of interpreting the data to suit its organizational needs. For any enterprise that relies on its employees for innovation and response, ONA can streamline productivity, create efficiencies, and improve processes for a distinct competitive advantage.
Ermis Sfakiyanudis, P.E., is president and CEO of eTelemetry. For more information on visit www.etelemetry.com.
