social media - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• ‘Give middle managers better collaboration tools’

  You say we need to move from systems of record to systems of engagement. What's the difference?

• How to get more Twitter followers: 5 do's and don'ts

  Twitter has evolved into one of the most popular, go-to tools when it comes to reaching broad audiences, whether you're promoting content, branding yourself as an expert in a field or networking with individuals who share similar interests.

• Gen Y vs. Gen X: Who causes more IT headaches?

  You've heard the Gen Y stereotypes before: They're lazy workers, exude entitlement and have been reared on social technologies that they bring into the workplace, whether IT departments like it or not.

• CIOs must join the era of empowerment

  Talk to any CIO and one issue inevitably surfaces: How do CIOs cope in a world where they can’t keep up with what their employees are doing?

• Social media essential to IT service management: Analyst

  CIOs must start to think about integrating social media into their service desks as the technology becomes ubiquitous in everyday life, according to analyst firm, Ovum.

• Integrating social media is hard to do

  Consumers check in on Foursquare. Your employees chat with customers on Facebook. Everyone tweets. Social media is everywhere, right? Not quite.

• Intellectual goods increasingly targeted

  Attackers are increasingly focusing on stealing intellectual property from companies and governments, but details of the losses continue to be scarce, concludes a survey of experts released by two security companies.
  The report - conducted by security firm McAfee, now part of Intel, and technology giant SAIC - found that companies worry so much about the reputational damage caused by a data breach that they tend to keep leaks of proprietary information a secret. Only one in four companies perform a forensics investigation following a breach, despite the fact that analysts have estimated that proprietary business information is twice as valuable as the custodial customer data that companies store.
  The result is that companies are poorly prepared to deal with the perceived shift in cybercrime, the report argues.

• Stewardship, not ownership

  "Improvisation is too good to leave to chance," said singer Paul Simon. It's a lesson that IT needs to learn and, more important, act on.

• Ovum: Gov't must use Facebook, Twitter to engage with public

  Both federal and state governments must utilise social media tools to engage with the public, Ovum has warned.

• IRD cited for ‘effective use’ of Facebook

  A Gartner analyst singled out the Inland Revenue Department for effectively using Facebook to inform people hit by the recent earthquake about tax relief, impact of a potential loss of tax records, changes in tax status and donation opportunities.
  “This is a very good practice,” says Andrea de Maio, of the Inland Revenue - Canterbury Earthquake Facebook page. “No thrills and frills, no feedback allowed, no engagement for the sake of engagement, just a stream of very focused news and information of the kind one would expect from a revenue agency.”
  Di Maio is a vice president at Gartner and his research focuses on the public sector particularly on e-government strategies and Web 2.0.
  “A lot of government agencies around the world are using Facebook as a cooler (they wish!) alternative to their websites,” Di Maio writes in a recent blog. “As a consequence, the value added they provide is limited, which is reflected into low number of friends / followers and modest interaction.”
  To comment on this article, please email the editor.

• ISACA enables better social media governance

  Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) has issued a new customisable audit program to help enterprises address the challenges associated with social media governance.

• Why CIOs can't ignore consumerisation of IT

  The last 24 months have brought an explosion of new devices, web applications, and social media platforms. With every new product release or social network launch, CIOs are getting pressure from their employees, including senior executives, to open the corporate network to consumer devices and allow access to more of the Web. This migration of consumer devices like smartphones and tablets into enterprise computing is making CIOs very nervous.

• Alcatel-Lucent unveils social media solution

  Riding on the popularity of social media, Alcatel-Lucent recently announced a solution to help organisations with their social media strategies.

• Inside an enterprise Salesforce Chatter rollout

  In 2009, Den-Mat, dental equipment manufacturing company based in California, ran on severely outdated IT. Employees relied on a 30 year-old legacy AS400 ERP green screen system with antiquated applications. Communication between departments was nearly nonexistent and processes were paper-heavy, says Jonathan Green, VP of IT. On top of that, the business faced a 48 per cent turnover rate for new employees, which was directly related to its old platform.

• The next big thing: Virtual workplaces

  In November, 1,500 international knowledge management experts converged on Washington DC for the world’s premier conference in this field, KM World 2010, giving attendees a glimpse into the future. Information Leadership’s Grant Margison was there as a speaker, and shares key insights on trends emerging from the conference.
  2.0 – it’s not just for teenagers any more. Most organisations are now thinking of, or have systems for, managing content and allowing for project collaboration. Case studies showed how organisations have extended this effectively to include social and networking functionality. Networking lets people find expertise and sound out who can help, while the social side provides a means of informally commenting on and finding content as well as building relationships. A parallel trend is the expectation that these combinations of tools are available 24/7, at any location, on a range of desktop and mobile platforms.