Facebook: enabling a "collaboration bridge" between our personal & work lives

As the saying goes, "if you want to predict the future of business IT and Communications, look at the younger workforce to steer your thinking in the right direction". Indeed, the "Millenial" generation has shepherded in new social networking technologies that are changing how business gets done.

When Zuckerman founded Facebook from his dorm room at Harvard, he was thinking of a safe and scalable way to bring communities of friends and like minded people together, to share likes, dislikes, and provide an unobtrusive way to share and learn more about one another (by viewing photos, personal information, comments and updates).

I don't think that Zuckerman was thinking about fundamentaly changing the way that global corporations would collaborate with each other, share ideas, innovate together, and stay conneected to virtual teams. With the "Millenial" generation streaming into the workforce over the past 5 years, they've brought new perspectives and culture with them; a culture of openness and transparancy, a willingness to collaborate to solve problems as a team ("crowdsourcing"), and a comfort level with being connected 24x7 and accessible, virtually, whenever and wherever you are.

The popularity of Facebook has exploded in popularity as the place to connect with friends. As the pressures of a fast paced society have integrated our personal and business lives, so Facebook has followed suit; adding new business features (e.g. Facebook Connect) that allow facebook users to make facebook their "one stop shop" for personal and business.

In their 2007 book, Junco and Mastrodicasa expanded on the work of Howe and Strauss to include research-based information about the personality profiles of Millennials, especially as it relates to higher education. They conducted a large-sample (7,705) research study of college students. They found that Net.Generation college students were frequently in touch with their parents and they used technology at higher rates than people from other generations. In their survey, they found that 97% of students owned a computer, 94% owned a cell phone, and 56% owned an MP3 player (iPod, Zune, Sansa, etc.). They also found that students spoke with their parents an average of 1.5 times a day about a wide range of topics.[10] Other findings in the Junco and Mastrodicasa survey included that 76% of students used Instant messaging, and 92% of those reported multitasking while IMing, and 40% of students used television to get most of their news and 34% the Internet.

According to a study by Junco and Mastrodicasa, 69% of "Millenials" reported having a Facebook account, typically logging in twice a day. Since this time traffic has grown from approx 7M account holders to 100M.

Facebook's original rapid growth was in the U.S. but has expanded globally at a much faster clip. Facebook is wielding incredible bargaining power with advertisers having over 100M subscribers to date.

The end game? I'm guessing that we have a good chance that Facebook will replace Google and the "search engine paradigm" as the internet users "watering hole". The new "waterhole" being online communities of interest.

Collaborating from a Distance: The Business Value of Teleworking

When gas prices surged to $5 last summer, something happened. Managers everywhere began embracing teleworking to help alleviate some of the pain inflicted at the pump. Often talked about, few managers openly promoted teleworking as an option. Now, deep into a recession, managers have come to realize that for your more senior talent, teleworking not only raises productivity, but also raises morale.

Much earlier in my career, I had a manager say that he wanted to see everyone in the office to make sure he understood what everyone was doing. He said that his style was to "manage by walking around". During a quarterly meeting, we had one of our senior leaders fly in for this meeting. Somebody asked him if he was supportive of teleworking and hiring talent that was not based on the same city as our office. His response was very clear - "If you want to rise in the company, you need to learn how to work from a distance and manage from a distance. The higher up you go, the more your direct reports will live in other cities."

Increasingly, companies are empowering their employees to telework. Enabled with Instant Messaging & "Presence" which allows you to see the availability of your employees at any time, managers feel more comfortable "letting go". What we've come to see over the past few years is that doing so, pays off in spades. Productivity increases of 10-20% are the norm with the added benefit of higher employee morale and loyalty. In a challenging economy when you can't afford to give raises and promotions, allowing people to telework 1-2 days a week, gives them more autonomy in how and when they get the job done. Having the ability to go for a run at lunch, wash your clothes in the middle of the day, or pick your child up from school at 3pm is a real benefit to your most prized assets - your people.

This week's "Trendwatcher" (Institute for Corporate Productivity), sites some great statistics supporting teleworking including research from the non-profit, Telework Coalition, that has found sizable productivity rises within the U.S. and abroad. Two of the findings are:

* Productivity increased 31% among the 9,000 telecommuters employed by British Telecom.
* At JD Edwards, telecommuters are 20% to 25% more productive than office workers (All, 2008).

Some experts say that telecommuting, especially in customer service jobs, will likely broaden and expand in the future. This growth is fueled by solutions such as Cisco's Unified Contact Center, which allows companies to deploy a "virtual contact center" and take customer calls, emails, or chat sessions from home. Not only does it give companies the ability to offer flexible work arrangements for their employees it also allows them to tap talent wherever they are in the world.

Nancy Gofus of Verizon offers some compelling reasons for adopting a teleworking program including: raising employee productivity, savings real estate costs, and going "green". Listen to her podcast.