How is a work-related social network developed and sustained?

Once testing and research has been done on a particular social network, the CIO must decide if the project to implement a social network is feasible or not. If the project is feasible abd the implementation goes ahead:-

A work-related social network is set up and maintained by a core user of the organisation. This core user will have waited for instructions from a superior or boss figure before any such online content was set up. The core user is the "owner" of the tool, and has administrative privileges to the social network. The core user implies ownership - they are the contact if something goes wrong. They are able to control what happens in the social network. The core user then creates the social network, whether it be a ning, a blog that users can share, a wiki, a forum, or some other online tool.

Once it has been created, the core user must sit with their superior and discuss appropriate uses of the site. This includes hours or minutes spent on the social networking site per day, how many people can be added, what other tools they can include, appropriate behaviour, and use of language, the structure of the organisation and communication, the appropriate conduct when replying to colleagues, and the appropriate way to take action on resolving a disagreement or argument. The appropriate usages information sheet needs to be fully documented and handed to staff.

Once the guidelines for usage have been documented and given out, the owner needs to add users to the social network. They can do this by creating accounts for users and then giving out the details (this isn't so good though because users have a stigma about their identity being protected), or the easier method - to send out email requests for employees to join.

If staff are being expected to use the social network, adequate up-to-sctratch training needs to be provided to use the social network and the tools included on it. The training should be offered to all parties who plan on using the social network. The training should happen before users are expected to use the new system.

Once all users are trained, and uses documented, the core user can launch the social networking site for all users to play with and learn. The core user is then responsible for maintaining the availibility of the social network, performing any additions to the features and upgrading if necessary.

Pages can be created just like in facebook where you can have a page to house a group of related users to a task at hand.

The core user needs to add (or send requests) to new employees when they arrive at the organisation, and also, remove illegitimate users who have left the company. This is crucial for the value of the organisation's information and knowledge. This task can be extremely messy for organisations with large numbers of users.

Many businesses have banned the use of social networking sites, because of the trend in how they were used - for socialising online only. There was little to do with support, and collaboration. From one aspect you have the whole distraction factor making it easy to go off task and end up concentrating on chatting to other colleagues. In addition there is also the downward spiral of work completion, as time is taken over by chatting the percentage rate would naturally fall. It would encourage procrastination, and allow people who work and maintain a work related social network to refine the art of procrastination.