Lotus user wary of rollout of social networking tools

Network World - As IBM moves to upgrade its cache of social networking tools, some users are taking a cautious approach to the technology while figuring out where it will apply and how to measure its effectiveness.

Where IT pros do their social networking

IBM Tuesday unveiled Lotus Connections 2.5, its upgraded lineup of social networking tools that are a major expansion to the company's suite of collaboration software. The new 2.5 version software includes micro-blogging, file sharing and new mobile capabilities.

But some of the features are expanding faster than users' plans to utilize the software.

One Connections 2.5 beta tester, a global consumer product corporation, is taking a deliberately slow approach to rolling out the social collaboration tools. The company's manager of messaging and collaboration asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.

The company started slow with a few hundred users who were only allowed to communicate with each other. The group's size was eventually doubled and then the tools were opened up companywide. At that point, the manager says, the number of users exploded by 650% to a few thousand.

Despite the growth, the company is still "seeding the environment," said the manager, but a broader rollout is planned. The harder part to plan is the expected results because the company has yet to figure out how to measure its return on investment. We will likely "wind up doing it anecdotally," said the manager. "The thing we're struggling with there is that this doesn't match the ROI [metrics that executives] are used to looking at. How do you measure, 'we recruited this person because of the [collaboration tool]?'"

While results are hard to gauge, the broader, anticipated benefits are being defined in the context of capturing and recording corporate knowledge.

For example, a certain administrative assistant may routinely be tasked with booking a certain type of event, said the manager. The worker could develop a how-to guide for use by others, he said.

The manager said it is a good time to ramp up internal communities and knowledge-sharing because as the economy and job markets rebound, workers who may have suffered pay or benefit cuts amid the recession will be looking to move on.

"Now is the time to get people to put information in, so you're not losing it on the back of a Post-it note."