3) Social media and its influence on corporate hierarchies

Several social media provider are in the market courting for the clients and various opinions are circulating discussing whether and to which extent social media has an influence on corporate hierarchies.

In accordance with the content of my blog I wish to draw your attention to the recent developped social media microblogging portal called Yammer.

Yammer is similar to Twitter connecting colleagues of the same company by using the login of the company address. More information and virtual shows on www.yammer.com

Objectives and possible contents of the microblogging portal are an improvement of information flow and knowledge to prevent misunderstandings which can be reached by questioning the team and informing about projects the department is working on. Additionally, the line manager is always informed on the projects his team is working on.

There arises the question if such a portal is going to increase the information explosion ? Does / Should a line manager  have the time to read all short message news of the team ? Or won’t it be jsut another portal for self-portrayal ?

I picked a few opinions to be presented in the following.

The first one chosen is the blog written by Benito Castro about the non-abolish of hierarchies by social media underpined by the statements that blogs are going to increase the information explosion but the same moment generating a communal spirit.

In contrary to the blog of Benito Castro a survey issued by Mc Kinsey among 3249 companies showed that already two-thirds of them used web 2.0 with an increasing percentage of 40% using social networks and 38% using blogs.

Much more interesting is that already 3% of the participiants are working fully networked including employees, customers and business partners. The incredible findings can be read under http://www.mckinseyquartely.com/organization/strategic_organization/The_rise_of_the_networked_enterprise_web_20_finds_its_payday_2716

The study which is one among several shows that things are start rolling showing already first positive results with the profit of the company by social media although I have not found a study explaing the influence on corporate hierarcheis by social media.

But under consideration of the findings of the Mc Kinsey study within internal purposes an influence can be assumed by the results of « increasing employee satisfaction 41%, increasing speed of access to internal experts 52%, reducing communication costs 60% ».

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/yammer; 20.12.2011, http://www.golem.de/0809/62376.html, 20.12.2011 ; http://andrewmcafee.org/2011/09/mcafee-dreamforce-enterprise-2-0-context, 20.12.2011 ; http://www.mckinseyquartely.com/organization/strategic_organization/The_rise_of_the_networked_enterprise_web_20_finds_its_payday_2716, 20.12.2011)