There’s a common but frequently overlooked aspect to much of the current web technology under the branding “web 2.0″: transparency. Everyday interactions that used to be opaque are now increasingly visible to everyone, from everything to how you’re feeling about the weather, to what music you’re listening to, and more. Bees have been doing something like this for millions of years: locating sources of pollen and returning to the hive to broadcast the flight pattern to recruit other bees.

Sites like twitter and facebook make it extremely easy to share random thoughts and updates on what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, etc. But do these types of applications have any real function in a business environment? Is it all just a bunch of buzzing, or can real work be accomplished? And, perhaps most importantly: does social transparency have any real place in a business environment?

The Business Value in Social Computing

Much of what goes into consumer-based social applications like twitter and facebook are simple updates, such as “just ate a burrito.” At first glance to someone who’s not yet involved in any of these sites, their reaction might be: what’s so useful about all this chatter?

Tacit Knowledge Sharing

While it may not be immediately obvious: regular updates about even the most mundane tasks are an important form of tacit knowledge sharing. Ultimately, having an easy platform for each individual user to share their status, ideas or just random thoughts is a perfect way to allow others to capture and harness information that may not have otherwise been known to them.

A business example: I’ve just finished a new whitepaper relevant to the auto industry. If I had a platform internally where I could broadcast that as my status, anyone who was searching for an auto industry expert could identify me as someone with experience in that area. Knowing that whitepaper was available might also lead sales reps who follow my status to increased sales, or having the right materials to close their deals in a timely manner. It’s a simple but powerful example of how social transparency in business can lead to increased efficiency in information sharing.

Avoiding Duplication of Effort

A common problem in organizations of all size is the duplication of effort, or simply: two people working on the same task at any given time. By sharing information about what I am working on and when I am working on it, I can effectively provide a way for my co-workers to avoid repeating the same effort.

The savings here are twofold: my co-workers will invest their time where it’s appropriate, and my work will be recognized and valued by my organization.

Teamwork and Team Building

The great thing about applications that help increase social transparency is that it helps facilitate a kind of personal sharing communication that might not otherwise exist within an organization. As a person working within an organization, sharing little bits about myself gives the people I work with a broader vision into the types of things I do on a daily basis, and can lead to opportunities for them to share in the work that I am doing.

Communication is the key to successful teamwork, and any platform that helps facilitate frequent and relevant communication will necessarily lead to more successful and rewarding teamwork.

Fostering Social Transparency in the Enterprise

Once the benefits of increased social transparency are clear and applicable to your organization, what are some ways to begin to foster that type of communication?

Encourage and Enable Team Communication

Before beginning to invest in any kind of social computing platform, it’s important to insure that the right team environment exists where teams across your organization will feel empowered to communicate information freely. This may simply not be possible for all organizations, many may be structured intentionally to prevent the free-flow of information for privacy, security or safety reasons.

But if team communication is feasible, it should be highly encouraged before beginning on any social computing pilot, simply because if teams aren’t communicating today, they won’t be likely to change their behaviors just because of a new application available to them.

Pilot and Prototype

Pick a target group of people who you believe will be the “lead users” for your pilot program, and begin working on an ideal prototype application. This prototype application should revolve around a particular use case or set of use cases where you intend to increase the amount of transparency.

For example: if you are working in an environment where one team frequently produces and updates content that another team uses, select key users from the team producing content and the team consuming content. Another example might be for teams where members are frequently traveling and need to post their whereabouts easily so that other team members can locate them.

Once you have a strong set of users and use cases, you can select the platform for building your prototype application.

Fun is a Part of the Equation

A final key point in applying social transparency and social computing concepts in your business or organization is to understand what it is that everyone is talking about, and why sites like twitter and facebook are so popular. Simplicity, usability, and “fun to use” are important aspects of social applications.

If you haven’t already done so, take a moment to sign up for sites like twitter, facebook, linkedin, del.icio.us or pownce. It’s important to get a feel for what works and doesn’t work. Once you begin using these applications, you’ll notice very quickly that the “fun” factor is not just about the fact that applications like facebook have games. The fun factor is in using the application, and being productive in it without wanting to smash your head into your monitor.

Have something to share that I may have missed? Let me know in the comments!

Filed under: Consumer Web, Enterprise Web, Knowledge Management, Social Computing