Social (net)working

Net

The success of social networking (and the business problems of Facebook) makes one thinking about the next steps. In which direction will social networking evolve? Even in the light of the enormous success and knowing the fact that for many social networking is an important part of life we can't forget its limitations. 

It's interesting that networking starts with one of the most intimate part of our life; friends.  Why not business contacts, colleagues, partners or authorities, shops? Naturally these also use the opportunity but they just jumped on the train. Google+ has circles which is a good way to differentiate audiences we contact too, but the tool set is the same.

Work

We spend plenty of time traveling between work and home just to make room for the two big time wasters; meetings and management. Most people work on computers and doesn't need any other (physical) equipment. Beside reasons to be discussed bellow social life is the explanation; we need to meet and talk people.  And of course we have to discuss work with each other. But that could be done in one or two days in the office (or at a more suitable place). Except the colleagues are far and we see them very seldom if ever  which is more and more frequently the case.

Platform

We need a next generation collaboration platform. It must have a couple of differences compared to today social networking suites:

• Good distinction between different groups (like friends, colleagues, customers, vendors, authorities...)
• Tools and services:  tools (e.g. accounting, tax, CRM, research databases,) which are able to support the tasks people do and can be connected easily. 
• Processes: users must be able to set up, measure and manage processes to achieve certain results and make people (and machines) cooperate in a value chain.

At corporations

It may last long but corporations has to change the way they work. Internet and cloud computing will make data centers obsolete, and personal devices supersede standard devices. Sticking to the old things (serves, local IT staff to run them, PCs, local networking, rooms, electricity... ) just makes things expensive, which no one could afford on the long run. 

Workplaces will turn to be "clubs" where people socialize, talk - mostly about work - and feel well. They work at home or in shared office room next to their home.

Companies are afraid to loose control when people work from home. We like it or not but the more we move to electronic collaboration and managed processes the more control is possible.