Corporations cannot risk ignoring social media, says Gartner

In a report on the use of social software and media in business, Gartner research director Anthony Bradley said that users would turn to social software and techniques, and that businesses must examine their usefulness or risk being left behind. He said that if corporations did not adopt them they risked their data flowing out to consumer-grade, public platforms.

"The demand from workers is escalating and they can and are turning to the consumer internet if their corporate technology provider isn’t offering a solution," he said.

“Some enterprises have achieved substantial results with social software, and many enterprises are now experimenting with the technology," he said. "Organisations need to exploit this growing consumer literacy for business purposes and prepare a social software strategy with a realistic understanding of the associated challenges, risks and benefits.”

Bradley said that the techniques of social media sites such as Wikipedia, Facebook and MySpace can be harnessed to increase corporate productivity and collaborative ability, but that there were five problems companies would have to address in order to harness their power.

He said that companies must at least investigate such techniques and not adopt a 'wait and see' attitude; that companies must find a way to make people engage with active use of the technology and not simply be observers; and that they must use their own enterprise versions of applications to ensure corporate privacy.

Bradley said that some misuse of technologies was inevitable, but that that must be expected and controlled, and that companies would need to change the way they control, measure and conceive of time and productivity management as workforces used the technologies to become more flexible.

“The severity of these five challenges will vary significantly from one organization to the next, as does their impact on decisions concerning whether, when and how to proceed with social software,” said Bradley. “There are no absolutes, for each potential social application organization must balance the business benefits over the risks of overcoming these challenges.”