As we’ve watched the Social Media virus spread faster and wider than Swine Flu, this blog has focused primarily on the nagging questions of Return on Investment. This is central to our mission. But the issues around liability and corporate proprietary information are also vital and may in fact put your company in far greater risk than the loss of a few hours a month spent on Facebook.
In an effort to address this subject area, we’ll be bringing some local and global expertise to these pages over the next few weeks. The first article I’d like to call to your attention addresses a new area of software designed to help the enterprise manage its Social Media presence in a way that limits liability and exposure of confidential information. Written for IT primarily, Alex Williams’ article gives you a sense of the types of things that are of concern and how they can be managed.
More on this area in upcoming posts, including a guest article by Beth Brascugli De Lima of HRM Consulting, in Calaveras County.
Social Media? No Way. Social Middleware? Oh, Yes!
by Alex Williams at ReadWrite Enterprise
In the word of IT, social buzz words can be a real way to kill any interest in adopting applications that give the enterprise access to the consumer web.
You have to speak their language. Social media? No way. Social middleware? Oh, yeah – now we are talking!
Socialware talks in language that IT can understand. The company is offering social middleware products that help companies integrate social networks with a level of control that makes them comfortable that the access is compliant with government regulations and IT policies.
In may ways, companies have set up their own iron curtains to keep social interaction to a minimum.
It’s also fair to say that many companies are eager to let their employees engage with the social web. But they want the risk managed, especially when it comes to interacting with social networks.
Socialware believes the missing component for the enterprise is a bridge layer that helps companies connect its people, processes and systems with the open, social web.
Socialware offers feature access control to social networks. An admin panel allows the IT manager to block access to different features on social networks such as Faccebook, LinekdIn and Twitter.
For example, users may access LinkedIn but there may be features that the employee is not permitted to access. The feature is flagged with a message that tells the user they do not have permission to use it.
Socialware provides the security layers and controls that give corporate IT the comfort that the risk in exposing social networks can be managed with rules that reflect the policies of the organization.
Socialware is funded by Mike Maples, Jr., who is an investor in Twitter. They are funded by Silverton Partners and G51. The management team have backgrounds in Web 2.0 and the enterprise.
That’s a mix which can make for a winning combination in the enterprise space. Socialware’s technology is reflective of that experience. We’ll be interested in seeing how the company develops in the year ahead.
