Social Networking for Business: Choosing the Right Tools and Resources to Fit Your Needs

The First Best-Practice Guide to Executing Any Type of Social Computing Project   Organizations today aren’t just participating in social networking, collaborative computing, and online communities--they are depending on those communities to play crucially important roles in their business. But these collaborative environments don’t just manage themselves: To succeed, they must be guided and nurtured carefully, actively, and intelligently.   In Social Networking for Business, Rawn Shah brings together patterns and best practices drawn from his extensive experience managing worldwide online communities at IBM and participating in social networking on the Internet. Drawing on multiple real-world examples, Shah identifies key success factors associated with launching social networking projects to meet business objectives and guides you through managing the crucial “micro-challenges” you’ll face in keeping them vibrant.   •   From mega-trends to micro-issues     Mastering both high-level strategy and day-to-day, ground-level management   •   Defining the social experience you want to provide to your community     Clarifying how members can join together and collaborate on collective tasks   •   Focusing on the crucial human factors     Building a culture of engagement in deeper collaborative relationships   •   Promoting effective leadership and governance     Setting ground rules that work appropriately for the situation, without “oppression”   •   Building the skills to manage and measure your collaborative project     Discovering the skills necessary to effectively lead computing projects