As social networks increasingly dominate communications in private lives, businesses of all sizes — from tiny start-ups to midsize companies like Nikon to behemoths like Dell — are adopting them for the workplace. Although it is difficult to quantify how many companies use internal social networks, a number of corporate software companies have sensed the opportunity and offer various systems, some free to existing customers, others charged per user.
It is one more instance of how consumer technology trends, like the use of tablet computers, are crossing into office life. Because of Facebook, most people are already comfortable with the idea of following their colleagues. But in the business world, the connections are between colleagues, not personal friends or family, and the communications are meant to be about work matters — like team projects, production flaws, and other routine business issues.
At Nikon, for example, which employs 500 people in offices throughout the United States, Canada, and Brazil, a code of conduct for using the service leaves little room for the idle chit-chat that is pervasive on Facebook.
Still, it can be tricky to transport the mores and practices of social networking into the office.
For instance, some workers prefer to be lurkers who read posts rather than write them. Others are just not interested. At Symantec, the computer security company, employees have used the internal social network, Chatter, to complain about it.
Another issue is how to protect corporate secrets. The systems are generally set up so that companies can determine who sees particular files and who belongs to specific groups on the network. Yet some of the services that provide the software store the data on their own servers and may not comply with corporate rules prohibiting data storage off-site, said Susan Landry, an analyst with Gartner.
And employees may post private information more widely than they should.
“It’s sometimes a disaster,’’ Landry said. “It sometimes gets shut down by security or compliance.’’
