IBM：即时通讯软件已取代语音信箱
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从SAP到微软，各大商业软件制造商都在竞相使产品变得更加“社交化”。总部位于纽约的IBM公司也不例外。IBM表示，社交媒体早在上世纪70年代就已在其内部扎根，当时IBM的主机程序员在System/370平台上开创了在线讨论区。今天，IBM也销售诸如IBM Connections之类的社交软件。IBM Connections使工作人员可以通过文件共享和建立群组等方式实现协作。 类似Facebook的社交网络功能在职场中究竟会成为一种经久不衰的潮流，抑或只是昙花一现？现在下定论还为时过早。不过IBM表示，它已经对自己的社交软件实行了“自产自销”，也就是把它在全球的40万名员工当成了新社交产品和社交功能的试验场地。到目前为止，IBM员工已经推出了17，000个博客。公司内部维客（wiki）的访问量达到了每天100万人次，每天发送的即时消息高达4，000万到5，000万条。我最近访问了IBM的新任首席信息官珍妮特•霍兰，以便更好地了解IBM员工在办公室内外使用社交网络功能的情况。 《财富》：作为首席信息官，你优先考虑的事是什么？ 霍兰：全领域社交媒体及其在IBM庞大而多元的员工队伍中的应用，这对于我们来说是个关键的创新领域。我们的许多（社交软件）创意在发展成产品、投入市场之前，都会先在IBM内部进行测试。为此我们与软件研发团队进行了密切合作。 《财富》：贵公司内部使用的是哪些社交工具？ 霍兰：我们在内部使用了很多社交媒体技术，比如维客和博客在市场上刚刚兴起，我们就已经在使用了。我们有40多万名员工，公司内部还有很多活跃的博客用户。每个员工都有一个IBM Connections页面。刚刚加盟IBM的新人会得到一个人力资源系统的入口，登陆后将在员工通讯录上生成一个条目。一开始这个条目上面只有员工姓名、电话号码、工作地址等基本信息。然后员工可以在上面添加个人的技能、简历及其正在参与的项目等信息，从而形成员工在IBM Connections上的公众形象。我们鼓励大家这么做，而且相当多的IBM员工也的确这样做了。我们的员工多达40万人，因此你会希望能有一种简单的方式，让你找到某些特定领域上的人才。在IBM内部应用第二广泛的社交网络是以自定义社区的概念为核心。员工可以创建一个具有一系列不同规则的社区。除此之外，使用微博或类似Twitter功能的人也越来越多了。不过，我们的员工一般不会发布诸如“我要去吃午饭了”这样的微博，而更可能会发“我要去做讲座了”这样的内容。 《财富》：员工发起了哪些在线社区？ 霍兰：我们有一个“欧洲女性”（Women in Europe）网络社区，它有23，000名会员。这个社区让员工们聚在一块儿，分享和她们自身有关的信息。如果你是一名新员工的话，你可以想象，加盟一家拥有40万名员工的公司是什么感觉。你会觉得很难与别人发生联系，尤其是你所属的团队可能分散在好几个不同的国家里。这些社区可以帮助你更快地进入角色，而且它也有助于解决时区的问题。 《财富》：除此以外，你们在内部还使用了哪些IBM的社交工具？ 霍兰：我们使用了即时通讯产品“Sametime”，它在IBM内部得到了大量使用。现在几乎已经没人使用语音信箱了，至少在公司内部是如此。电话“捉迷藏”的日子已经一去不复返了。使用即时通讯的好处是你能够看到对方的状态。 《财富》：公司内部的博客用户和社交媒体用户这么多，你怎样保证他们都能遵守公司的规定？ 霍兰：员工们都想知道公司在社交媒体上的规定是什么，而且我们也是率先出台相关规定的公司之一。IBM的核心价值是信任和个人责任。我们制订了一些规定，例如明确了员工在哪些场合下可以表明自己IBM员工的身份；哪些信息是适合分享的、哪些信息则不然等。我们还有一个在线升级的教学模块，涵盖了一般业务指导原则的方方面面，例如哪些情形属于合理使用IBM的资源，哪种情形则不然。我们必须尊重个人的权利，确保人们在网络上不受干扰。 译者:朴成奎 |
Business software makers -- from SAP (SAP) to Microsoft (MSFT) -- are in a race to make their products more "social." IBM (IBM) is no exception. The New York-based company says its social media roots date back to the 1970s, when its mainframe programmers started discussion forums (on System/370 consoles). Today, IBM sells social software like IBM Connections, which lets workers collaborate by sharing files and forming groups. It's too early to tell whether Facebook-like features in the workplace will be a passing fad or a lasting trend, but IBM says it's eating its own dog food. The company uses its 400,000 worldwide employees as a testing ground for upcoming social products and features. IBM employees have launched 17,000 blogs to date. They also generate 1 million page views of internal wikis and 40-50 million instant messages per day. I recently caught up with IBM's new CIO, Jeannette Horan, to find out more about how employees use social networking features in and out of the office. Fortune: What are your priorities as CIO? Horan: The whole area of social media and the enablement of it in our very large diverse workforce is a key innovation area for us. Many of our [social software] ideas get tested within the IBM sandbox before they make their way into products that we deliver to the market. We partner heavily with the software development teams to make this happen. Fortune: What kind of social tools do you use internally? Horan: We had internal implementations of a lot of the social media technologies like wikis and blogs when they were first emerging in the marketplace. We have over 400,000 employees and had a very active set of internal bloggers. All employees have an IBM Connections page. When you join IBM you have an entry in the HR system and that populates an entry into the employee directory. Initially it just has your name, phone number, work address, etc. Then you can add information about your skills, your resume and projects you're working on. This becomes your public persona on Connections. We encourage people to do this, and a significant percentage of the IBM population do. With 400,000 people, you want an easy way to find people that are experts in specific areas. Beyond that the second most prolific use of social networking within IBM is this notion around self-identifying communities. You can establish a community with different rule sets. And increasingly, people are also using microblogging, or Twitter-like, features. But people here don't tend to do the "I'm going for lunch" kind of posts. It's more like "I'm going to give a seminar." Fortune: What kind of online communities have employees started? Horan: We have a Women in Europe community with 23,000 members. This is a way for them to come together and share information that's pertinent to them. As a new employee, you can imagine that coming into an organization with 400,000 people, it's hard to feel connected, especially when your team is probably spread across several different countries. So these communities help them to get up to speed more quickly. And it also helps with the time zone problem. Fortune: Which other IBM social tools do you use internally? Horan: We use Sametime, our instant messaging product. It's used tremendously within IBM. The use of voice mail is all but gone at this point in time, at least internally -- the days of playing phone tag is a thing of the past. The nice thing about instant messaging is you get to see people's status. Fortune: With so many bloggers and social media users, how do you make sure they follow corporate guidelines? Horan: Employees want to know what the guidelines are, and we were one of the first companies to publish guidelines on this. IBM's core values are trust and personal responsibility. We publish guidelines about when to say you're an IBM employee, what kind of material is appropriate and inappropriate to share, etc. And we have an education module that's updated online, and it covers everything on typical business guidelines, like what are appropriate and inappropriate uses of IBM resources. We have to respect individuals' rights and make sure that [they're] not harassing people online. |
