Facebook could become the "virtual water cooler" for corporations

Implications: 1.  Getting work done also involves knowing your fellow employees outside of work 2.  Some companies are starting to use facebook as a way to connect employees

Analysis:

Many of the social aspects of work are getting harder to accomplish as today's workforce becomes geographically dispersed.  Sometimes the most important part of a project is the building the camaraderie around the team.  Traditionally, this is done with offsite planning meetings that often involve fun events.

With the advent of social networking, you can have a fun event without needing to go offsite.  Think about how often you talk with a coworker about their children or some local event.  It helps build rapoire to often do so.  With Facebook, you can learn about people who you will be working with without having to be in the same location as they are.

I know of a few companies that have instituted this feature within their company.  They have created a group that all company employees are allowed to join.  Some people were skeptical at first and many people were worried about HR issues.  The other worry was that people would spend all their day updating their facebook and not doing "real work"

The early results from this CIO were that the incidents of abuse seemed no more greater that before the introduction of facebook into the company.  In fact, the general feeling is that it has made the company a more friendly place to work.  People know each other better and it has led people to work more closely with each other even when they are separated by distance.  And most employees keep their time on facebook to a reasonable time.

The introduction of facebook into the company was driven from the CEO's office because he wanted people to feel more camaraderie.  This company had many offices and cross-functional efforts happening around the globe.  The CIO's responsibility was to setup the group that all employees could join and manage the access to the group.  All employees could join the group, but if you left the company you were removed from the group by the IT department.

Working virtually has been increasing as more and more people work from home or at remote offices.  But keeping the corporate culture intact with this change has been a challenge.  Maybe Facebook will allow for companies to bring back more of the personality from the disparate workforce.  In fact, Facebook may be just an extension of integrated commincation.  It is not just about the integration of voicemail, email, video.  It is about the integration of people into teams.