Exploitation is usually a "bad" word, with connotations and meanings that cause people to shy away from using it. However, in the highly competitive arena of Information Technology, exploitation can be a really good word. To exploit new technologies and opportunities for the success of your customers and your business is what the leading edge of IT is all about. Social networking already exists within your organization. Social networking exists in hallway conversations and interoffice phone calls and the massive volume of internal emails that every organization experiences. Some of these mechanisms can be mined to gather information about how your organization is actually working and to support restructuring and reorganization efforts that deliver improved processes and communication.
Available to every corporation is data about who sends email to whom. Many companies do not have the existing logging capabilities of their email systems turned on, but if they did, a timestamped record can be gathered of all internal email transactions. Major mail systems like Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes readily support this. Most companies also have data sources that associate people with their email addresses and with other company data such as what department they belong to and perhaps what projects they are working on. A simple SQL database can be created that joins this data together and removes the individual identity data (to protect privacy) leaving a timestamped record of communications between departments.
A single medium of communciation, such as email, does not provide a complete picture. In organizations with their own phone systems (PBX), or with a service provider who can provide such information, logs of which phone extension called which other extension can be obtained. Once again, this can be linked to directory data of the people assigned those extensions and anonymized to the department, project, or group level to protect privacy.
Still other sources of social networking data may be available to companies who have other communication systems in place that can be added to email and phone profiles for a fuller picture. One example would be mining an organizational calendaring system for meetings and their attendees, again abstracted to the department or group level. Others may have implemented organizational social networking systems for knowledge or information sharing that can be mined. All this can be augmented by old-fashioned qualitative and quantitative research methods to add face-to-face interactions to the layers of data.
Analysis of this data can reveal interactions that can be dramatically improved by physical moves and/or reorganizations. For example, in one case in a pharmaceutical company, such an analysis showed that two different groups in the clinical division had a very high level of routine interaction - much more than management or individual employees had estimated. The two groups were several buildings apart. A reorganization and physical move placed the two groups under a common reporting structure and in close physical proximity, generating a measurable improvement in productivity for both groups.
Organizations are dynamic. Changing business situations often cause employees, managers, and executives to alter interactions with others in their organization without realizing the extent of the change. A system for the regular mining of social interaction within an organization can empower executives and managers with supplemental hard data to shape their institutions to respond better to the ever-changing market they serve.